Újpalota is a
panel housing estate in the
15th district of Budapest,
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
.
History
In 1969 a new
panel housing estate was founded on the northeastern border of Budapest, in a wheat field and a former cemetery, near the Szilas-patak (Szilas Brook), commemorating the 50th anniversary of the
Hungarian Soviet Republic
The Socialist Federative Republic of Councils in Hungary ( hu, Magyarországi Szocialista Szövetséges Tanácsköztársaság) (due to an early mistranslation, it became widely known as the Hungarian Soviet Republic in English-language sources ( ...
(1919).
It was named ''Újpalota'' (literally "Newcastle") after the adjacent village of
Palota
Palota ( rue, Палота) is a village and municipality in the Medzilaborce District in the Prešov Region of far north-eastern Slovakia.
History
In historical records the village was first mentioned in 1330.
Geography
The municipality lies ...
("Castle"), which initially became a suburb of the Hungarian capital, and later part of
Greater Budapest Greater Budapest is the name of Budapest in its present, extended size, as it was created by the ''Law No. XXVI of 1949'' passed on December 15, 1949 and it came into force on January 1, 1950. By attaching 7 towns and 16 villages to the former Budap ...
.
104 panel buildings (5, 7, 11, 13 and 15-storey blocks) were planned for the area, containing 14,105 flats with an average floor space of (including one-, two-, three- and four-bedroom apartements). According to Tibor Tenke, the architect of the housing estate, the original plan was revised to increase the number of flats to 15,560.
Construction was by the ''BHK III.'' (3rd Housing Factory of Budapest) using Soviet-Hungarian technology, and was completed in 1978.
Demographics
In the late 1970s Újpalota had 60,000 inhabitants from all over the country, but mostly from the poor neighbourhoods of Budapest (
Józsefváros
Józsefváros (german: Josefstadt) is the 8th district of Budapest, Hungary. It is the part of the city centre in the wider sense as one of the 18–19th century older suburbs, close to Belváros.
Location
The main streets in Józsefváros ...
,
Kőbánya
Kőbánya (literally: Quarry, ) is the 10th district of Budapest () and one of the largest by territory. It is located in southeast Pest, easily accessible from the downtown by Metro 3, whose terminus is named '' Kőbánya-Kispest''.
It has ...
,
Újpest
Újpest (; german: Neu-Pest, en, New Pest) is the 4th District in Budapest, Hungary. It is located on the left bank of the Danube River. The name Újpest means "New Pest" because the city was formed on the border of the city of Pest, Hungary i ...
,
Kispest
Kispest (lit. ''Little Pest'') is the 19th (XIX) district of Budapest, Hungary. It lies south-southeast of the historical Pest city. It was founded in 1871 on rural land as a village at the borderline of Pest, so it was named Kispest.
Histor ...
,
Angyalföld
Angyalföld (german: Engelsfeld; literally: "Angel's Field or Angel Land") is a neighbourhood in Budapest, Hungary. Administratively it belongs to the 13th district of Budapest, 13th district. The traditionally working-class neighbourhood went thr ...
), where the
slum housing
A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily in ...
was demolished.
Újpalota provided these poor families with a real improvement in living conditions, including
district heating
District heating (also known as heat networks or teleheating) is a system for distributing heat generated in a centralized location through a system of insulated pipes for residential and commercial heating requirements such as space heating a ...
, piped hot water and
flush toilet
A flush toilet (also known as a flushing toilet, water closet (WC) – see also toilet names) is a toilet that disposes of human waste (principally urine and feces) by using the force of water to ''flush'' it through a drainpipe to another lo ...
s.
According to a 1975 survey, 70% of householders were considered to be "workers", and only 12% had passed the
maturity exam
or its translated terms (''Mature'', ''Matur'', , , , , , ) is a Latin name for the secondary school exit exam or "maturity diploma" in various European countries, including Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czec ...
( hu, érettségi vizsga), a complex exam at the end of high school in Hungary).
21% of couples raised 1 child, 46% two children and 19% three children.
According to the 2011 census, Újpalota had 33,557 inhabitants,
a significant decrease since the late 1970s.
See also
*
Pestújhely
Pestújhely (literally: ''New Settlement by Pest'', german: Neustädtl) is one of the northern suburbs of Budapest, the capital of Hungary. It belongs to District XV.
History
Until the second half of the 19th century, this area belonged to t ...
*
Rákospalota
Rákospalota (literally: ''Castle ponRákos rook', german: Palota) is a neighbourhood in Budapest, Hungary. With Pest-újhely and Új-palota it comprises District XV.
History
In the early Middle Ages there were about six villages in the nor ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ujpalota
15th District of Budapest
Neighbourhoods of Budapest
Urban planning in Hungary
1969 establishments in Hungary