Since the collapse of the communist regime, land use planning has been characterised by ad hoc political decisions and investment-led approaches in the metropolitan region of Budapest. After a short period of time, the entrepreneurial style of planning based on the principle of enticing any type of new investments has created a number of challenging problems, among others robust land-use changes. Until now there has been no systematic research in the field, our knowledge on land conversion (e.g. arable land, forests) is very limited, comparative analyses are completely missing. In this paper we would like to analyse land-use changes that have taken place in the peri-urban and intra-urban spaces of Budapest since 1990. Special attention will be paid to the effects of urban sprawl, as well as the mushrooming of brownfield sites and shrinkage of green areas inside the compact city. The main objective is to understand the various socio-economic, ecological and environmental impacts of these processes.