Budapest the only city..?

Hello Robski.

Welcome to Expat.com!

You can register your blog in the Hungary Blog section and your photos in the Pictures section.

If you have some suggestions of cities, do not hesitate to propose them. 

Thank you,
Aurélie
Expat.com Team

Thanks Aurélie

I've joined initially so that I can get some advice from the members here, but I hope in time I can give something back in return. That after all is what makes a good forum.

Cheers!

Welcome to the forum, I don't know why some forum people don't loudly protest to your title, as I remember that a few of them are not living in budapest. But: I just moved to Debrecen about a month ago for a position at the univ. - but when I put up  question if anybody lives there there was only - silence!
But what a horror - alas, I am hungarian, only one with 2/3 of my life spent abroad.
But there are ca. 3000 foreign students at the univ. Debrecen which makes a lot of money out of its english speaking 'medical school' bussiness (fee: 1k EUR/month).

Robski wrote:

Obviously not, but the Hungarian forum is seemingly very Budapest-centric. I guess for most there is no reason to live further out from such a fantastic city....

Hungary is a small place with only really one big city. The others are minnows compared to Budapest. 20% of the population live there and there's really no other cities of any size. It's not like there's say a Glasgow, a Birmingham or  Bristol. Everything seems to be centred on Budapest - main transport hub, all the very large shops and so on. It's the same all over the region as all the countries have relatively small populations (not like Germany, France, Spain or UK).  Poland probably has more large cities (never been there myself).

Debrecen probably has some life in it due to the students but come summer, it's probably rather quiet.

Robski wrote:

Budapest the only city..?

If one defines a city as an urban area having a large enough population to (economically) sustain an active and sufficiently variety filled social, artistic, and night life for each day of the year, then I agree Budapest is the only city in Hungary.

Robski wrote:

the Hungarian forum is seemingly very Budapest-centric.

Do you mean that most posts come from people in Budapest? Or that posts seeking get-togethers are all in Budapest? Or something else?

Robski wrote:

I guess for most there is no reason to live further out

Fewer reasons, for sure.

I think people, in any country, move mostly to where they can find reliable work. Living outside a city is more often a life choice.

In the country side there are relatively fewer English speakers per capita, and the demography of those that do speak English drifts to the youth. Thus there might be fewer opportunities for socializing with those in your age/peer group. For example, many Hungarians that do speak English where I am, for example, are 25 or younger and I am.... well not anymore.

And also consider that while there are actually many expats where I live (in the country -- population of my village is under 500 people) many simply do not come to an English forum as they are not native English speakers themselves.

It is a bit irritating the way the Budapest based forum members seem to assume everyone else is also in Budapest. I am actually nearer to Zagreb than I am to Budapest so I can't see me visiting the place too often.

fidobsa wrote:

It is a bit irritating the way the Budapest based forum members seem to assume everyone else is also in Budapest. I am actually nearer to Zagreb than I am to Budapest so I can't see me visiting the place too often.

It's not surprising. Everything is in Budapest.

Zagreb, despite being a capital city town, was just a small provincial town in the Yugoslav era. It's still like that now. It doesn't compare to say, Vienna or Budapest. It could never be really big as the population of Croatia is small. It's like comparing say, Glasgow and say, Carlisle.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Hungary is a small place with only really one big city. The others are minnows compared to Budapest. 20% of the population live there and there's really no other cities of any size. It's not like there's say a Glasgow, a Birmingham or  Bristol. Everything seems to be centred on Budapest - main transport hub, all the very large shops and so on. It's the same all over the region as all the countries have relatively small populations (not like Germany, France, Spain or UK).  Poland probably has more large cities (never been there myself).

Debrecen probably has some life in it due to the students but come summer, it's probably rather quiet.

Warning:
As a dedicated city-dweller who and has dived into a number of cities, I could not help exceeding the usual contribution length here:
Fluffy's comment is somewhat true, but stated in a rather arrogant tone, I feel. If countries here are all "small place", is the UK a more  of a "great place"?
Also, London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow (still largest european city) are all one-of-a-kind in their respective countries! Afaik, in terms of 'city-feeling' Budapest still outcompetes Nr2 cities (Hamburg, Münnich, B'ham... ) with probably the notable exception of Leningrad (or watsitcalled ?)

Back to Bp: Hungary has always been a pretty centralized country (simplifying away details), and it already started off as a single state around 900A.D., even if Ottoman occupation disrupted this dividing the country for 150 years. (France, UK, and obviously Germany, attained their present form later, a course favouring multiple centers.)
Buda has mostly served as the capital for over 500 years, but became only quite late, between 1850 and 1919 a "world city" (melting with Pest and Óbuda into 'Budapest').
Note that this was the capital of a much larger country than today, during a time of economic boom of sorts - that is probably why today's Budapest (and also the Parliament) may feel a bit oversized. (Warsaw, capital of a country similar in size of pre-WWI hungary, seemed to me to offer a similar level of 'world city' feeling during my short visit in 2006)

Budapest becoming somewhat of a stressful place (I still half-remember the peacefulness and the social peace of the years around 1990...), there are places which have a good reputation among young Budapest people for being vibrant places, while offering less noise/crime and a more relaxed lifestyle than Bp.
Szeged, and Pécs have the best reputations for a young, vibrant lifestyle, both being traditional, above 150k university 'towns' (both with some foreign medical student population).
E.g. Szeged seems definitely above 'town' level to me with a National Theatre regularly playing opera performances, too.(apparently having an Opera is my personal boundary for city status :p)

While Debrecen is the second largest city (pop: 200k) with a large University(ca. 30k students since the unification of most tertiary level institutions), it is known to be a less vibrant place. They say, and I am starting to see why, that the Alföld people's somewhat conservative - also in the good sense! - mindset defines the vibe of this place. Indeed as someone who has lived there over, well, a month, I can say that it is more a quiet and also relaxed place than Budapest, with a bit more pronounced 'eastern' tendencies. It boasts a recently renovated and indeed very pleasant, even vibrant(not the whole night, though) city center with lots of bars/restaurants, and, as the capital of the east, of course offers a significant cultural diet, including an own, albeit new, National Museum complex.
[I guess/predict that this vibe might shift in the coming years towards a more cosmopolitan one as the university has a significant (and profitable) foreign student population of 3000, which it is probably seeking to expand further. Also the new regular flights from Debrecen to London may contribute to long term change - remember that 'half of' eastern Hungary works in the west... but some of them will come back. ]

This is just my impressions and reporting the general picture, I guess its difficult to talk about 'hard facts' in this respect.

I think everybody misunderstood the idea of this thread. It is not about which city is bigger, which has the biggest population etc etc.
It is obvious that some of us here sought after Croatia, secretly of course;)

It is about Robski asking why this forum is only about Budapest?

Because the number of expats outside Budapest is smaller and because as an ex. the expats around Balaton area they stick together and do not need this forum.

Robski feel free and open a Debrecen forum!

Girlie wrote:

Robski feel free and open a Debrecen forum!

Do you have authorisation from the site admin. to make such an offer?

Girlie wrote:

I think everybody misunderstood the idea of this thread. It is not about which city is bigger, which has the biggest population etc etc.
It is obvious that some of us here sought after Croatia, secretly of course;)

It is about Robski asking why this forum is only about Budapest?

Robski feel free and open a Debrecen forum!

I actually think a thread with the given title is as much about such a discussion as about the literal question in the title. OK, if pressed hard (feel free to bribe me with a Túró Rudi!), I will admit that I perhaps might have slid off topic just a teeny bit above...

While Robski is not yet in Debrecen, I would think, the forum programmers in sunny Mauritius may consider to add more
"destination in Hungary" to the one 'Budapest' (e.g. 'Szeged and Balaton region', Debrecen region...) if asked kindly.

BTW the Hungarian language does not have separate words for "town" and "city", both are "város", because we only have one city.
Same with "hill" and "mountain" are both "hegy" because we don't have any mountains :-)

Oh, and Budapestians tend to call everything outside Budapest "country" that is "vidék" to the utter annoyance of "country people", "vidéki" :-)

szocske wrote:

BTW the Hungarian language does not have separate words for "town" and "city", both are "város", because we only have one city.

Objection, your honour! We do have kisváros(small town), nagyváros('big town'-I think places above 150k would usually qualify), Világváros ('world city', only Budapest qualifies).
It is true, of course, that prior to the 90's, the typical hungarian speaker has not experienced the same variety of cities as the german or english, but globalisation and emigration is changing that.
Hungarian loves compound words, while english clealrly doesn't, instead it looooves to import words from different languages, often used to distinguish similar shades of the same stuff(cattle/beef...).

szocske wrote:

Same with "hill" and "mountain" are both "hegy" because we don't have any mountains :-)

Hey, its just, we just use 'hegy'(mountain) for objects which a transsylvanian would call 'domb'(hill). But trust me, our hills would count as mountains in Berlin (It took me years until I noticed the Mountain in "Prenzlauer Berg")

szocske wrote:

Oh, and Budapestians tend to call everything outside Budapest "country" that is "vidék" to the utter annoyance of "country people", "vidéki" :-)

Yepp, and once I have stopped contributing, you will know that one day, I failed to surpress that word in Debrecen...

fireroller wrote:

Fluffy's comment is somewhat true, but stated in a rather arrogant tone, I feel. If countries here are all "small place", is the UK a more  of a "great place"?
Also, London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow (still largest european city) are all one-of-a-kind in their respective countries! Afaik, in terms of 'city-feeling' Budapest still outcompetes Nr2 cities (Hamburg, Münnich, B'ham... ) with probably the notable exception of Leningrad (or watsitcalled ?)

I wasn't being arrogant. It's just a fact that all other Hungarian cities are small compared to Budapest. I was not comparing culture. I was just comparing sizes of the cities.

It's not like Hungary has 10 cities with population of 1 million each, with its own metro system, international airport, major rail and highway links, industrial complexes, i.e. multiple large cities in the SAME country. That's not the same as say, Germany, France etc which have multiple large cities with all that infrastructure all in one country (e.g. Germany: Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt, France: Lyon, Lille, Toulouse etc.

It's just the same in other countries in the region (Moscow is not in this region and neither is Birmingham etc). It's just that the population is small. If we go out, towards the wider "historical Hungary", around the borders, then we can take in Vienna, Bratislava, Zagreb, Belgrade then there are cities which are comparable to a capital of Budapest but these are not now in Hungary (even though some of them were previously).

It's all population related. Hungary is just not that big. It's a small place. It's not China, the USA or India etc. I'm not complaining, just stating a fact.