Stakeholders' perceptions of urban regeneration: the case of kis-pongrac in budapest

Urban regeneration has been seen as the saving grace for cities, bringing hopes of rejuvenating their social environment, renovating their dilapidated buildings and revitalising local urban economies. To implement urban regeneration programs, governments have collaborated with various stakeholders for area-based initiatives. The paper aims to investigate the participatory, integrated approach in Hungary from the perspective of the key stakeholders directly and indirectly involved in a localised case study. Thus, the main objective is to identify the challenges within urban governance of a post-socialist which hindered the development of an integrated and participatory stakeholder engagement approach. Data was gathered through semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders that were then subject to thematic analysis. In the case study, findings provided critical insights into the interaction between stakeholders' engagement and these projects. The findings also included the challenges that stakeholders experienced with the project and the need for long-term stakeholder collaboration between the residents, civil society and the government. It is hoped that the findings of this study are not only of interest to urban planners and how beneficial it is for the long-term to include local people in all the different stages of the program, but also to local academia to realise the significant role they can play in contributing towards the success of urban regeneration in their local communities plus in other regions through the sharing of their local urban regeneration outcomes to other academics.