Objective and Subjective Study of the Dynamic Development of the City of Gyöngyös (Hungary)

Abstract Cities play a key role in EU regional policy, and to this end the Leipzig Charter called for the development of Integrated Urban Development Strategies (IVS) emphasizing an integrated approach in the 2007–2013 budget period, which was replaced in the period 2014–2020 by Integrated Settlement Development Strategies (ITS). We can find many experiments in the methodological elaboration of the measurement of regional and municipality development in the Hungarian and international literature. However, due to the complexity of the topic, no more widely accepted procedure has emerged, however, there is a common consensus that development is treated as a complex phenomenon. In the present study, we attempted to examine the development of the city of Gyöngyös through a complex system of indicators for the period 2010–2018. In addition, an important part of our research is to supplement the results obtained with statistical data and, if possible, to compare them to the subjective judgment of the residents. Our main goal was to answer how the changes of the indicator groups in the indicator system and their totality are perceived by the residents.