Hogyan határozható meg a város területe? Az 1843/44. évi városi törvény vitái
How to define the area of a town? Debates about the urban act of 1843/44

Summary/Abstract: The starting point of the paper is the analysis of the changes of the concept of“town” in Hungary. Exploration of the discourse of the time shows that the conceptof town had undergone signifi cant changes between the end of the 18th centuryand the middle of the 19th century. Besides the traditional legal-politicalconcept, two new aspects came into play, as witnessed by the defi nition providedby Article 1. of the Urban Act drafted by the Parliament of 1843-1844: “Thetown consists of the town area and the town dwellers”. Th at is, while previousdefi nitions had been primarily based on privilege, here the emphasis shifted tothe demographic and spatial dimensions of the concept. The paper examines thepart of the protracted debate of the Parliament of 1843-1844 about the draftUrban Act that focused on the problems related to the defi nition of the townarea. According to the members of the Parliament, the area of the town is thearea over which the town has jurisdiction. The main diffi culty arose from the factthat due to the various privileges, this area did not coincide with the geographicaldimensions of the town. The proponents of liberal reforms strove to homogenizethe legally fragmented dimensions of the town as far as possible and to extend thecompetency of the town authority over the entire geographical area of the town.As this also entailed the subordination of the town nobility under the town jurisdictionand thus had a direct eff ect on existing noble privileges, the debate on thedefi nition of the town area involved signifi cant political and social stakes. Yet,the diff erences between the geographical dimensions and the area – the jurisdiction– of the town had only been eliminated by the laws of 1848.

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