On 12 June 2023, a research seminar took place in the National Institute of Geophysics, Geodesy and Geography (NIGGG) of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia, discussing the phenomena of suburbanisation in case of Bulgarian cities. The event was organised in the frame of the Bulgarian-Hungarian Academic Exchange Program. From Hungary, the Győr based West-Hungarian Research Department of the Institute for Regional Studies of the ELKH Centre for Economic and Regional Studies (CERS IRS) has been involved in the cooperation.
There has been a traditional exchange between the two partner organisations for decades, covering research on topics like regional differences and development of cities and city-network, the historical and contemporary effects of the Danube River on the urbanisation processes and the urban network of the riparian regions, as well as the depopulation of villages, small towns and rural regions. The actual project running in 2022-2023 titled „Environmental effects of the urban and rural sprawl around the middle-sized cities in Hungary and Bulgaria” aims to examine, compare and assess the socio-economic and environmental impacts of urban sprawl caused on the environment, land use and socio-economic development of the settlements. Leaders of the project are Prof. Dr. Nadezhda Ilieva (Bulgaria) and Prof. Dr. Tamás Hardi (Hungary).
As a result of the current project, a research article titled "Suburbanisation Processes in Second Tier Cities in Bulgaria - Demographic, Socio-Economic, and Spatial Transformation of the Agglomeration Areas - A Case Study of Plovdiv and Burgas" written by Bulgarian and Hungarian researchers Nadezhda Ilieva, Tamás Hardi, Stefan Genchev, Aleksandra Ravnachka, Dessislava Poleganova, Szilárd Rácz and Boris Kazakov has been published in the academic journal Problems of Geography. The study explored that the former population growth of the core city areas of Plovdiv and Burgas turned into a population decrease in favour of the surrounding settlements during the second decade of the 21st century, i.e. a remarkable suburbanisation process can be observed in case of both cities. However, main drivers of economic development continue to originate from the core areas. Related to the new land cover, notable differences have been explored between the cities Plovdiv and Burgas.
On 12 June 2023, in the frame of the research seminar, colleagues of the Bulgarian Institute, Boris Kazakov, Aleksandra Ravnachka and Dessislava Poleganova presented their above-mentioned research paper. From Hungary Melinda Hajdu-Smahó, research fellow at CERS IRS West-Hungarian Research Department held a presentation about the possible impacts of autonomous vehicles in future cities, emphasising the suburbanisation aspects. With the appearance of autonomous vehicles, revolutionary changes can be expected in cities, related to lifestyle, transportation, land use and city budgets, as well as to urban and transportation planning. The excellent cooperation between the two institutions may continue by elaborating new research ideas, e.g. town development, land use patterns or urban planning systems, as well as by considering new funding possibilities of the European Research Area.