Man, I hate when the browser freezes in the middle of my posting and I have to start all over *sigh*
So, I'll give a little info on development/Westernization in Budapest. Here are some links to articles, as well as my own thoughts/observations:
Shopping/Retail:
Two articles on shopping centers, malls and hypermarkets in the Hungarian market:
About the Market
Projected Growth
My thoughts:
When I lived there in 1999, there were a number of small grocery chains including many Hungarian-owned. There was one grocery chain - Kaiser's - that was comparable to an American grocery store. Most others were really just a dry goods/deli type of place, you would go to separate store or the markets for fruit & veg, meat, and poultry. There was one department store - Skala - that was somewhere between a Kohl's and a Filene's. The first mall inside the city had just been finished (called Mammut, in northern Buda). It was such a contentious issue that it received regular bomb threats (I can recall three off the top of my head).
Fast forward to when I lived there in 2003: There are numerous malls throughout the city and country, including some that even overwhelm me with their gaudiness. (E.G., WestEnd has a TGI Fridays, and indoor waterfall, all the usual mall stuff, and offers hot air balloon rides for a bird's eye view of the city). Most malls now contain a grocery store (often the dutch SMatch chain) that would be recognizable to Americans. You still go to the butcher instead of buying shrink wrapped stuff, but he's in the same store as your cereal and milk. Groby is the only existing Hungarian-owned grocery story. There are also international hypermarket and Big Box stores inside or just outside the city - Auchan, Tesco, Ikea...
Office space/downtown development:
No Skyscrapers in the Center
Luxury Apartments
I don't have much to say about office space in BP. In 99, I was a student and rarely spent time in the downtown business district. I see some buildings that are clearly new-is or under construction, but I have no basis of comparison.
Personal real estate though... As far as I understand, many people owned flats by a sort of squatters' rights. When the state gave up ownership, whoever lived there just became the new owner. In this sense, almost all flats in BP are not apartments in an american sense, but more like condos. Someone owns the building and someone else owns the flat itself. In some cases, this was problematic because it was unclear who owned the building and it would fall into disrepair.
Now there are a lot of developments, particularly in district III (Obuda) that are like western condo/townhouse developments. Apparently, they're pretty popular with young families, especially because the government will give young couples who are married and agree to have a child withing the next few years a chunk of money to purchase a home.
