The control over our surroundings would naturally belong to us city inhabitants, nevertheless we have a persistent feeling of loosing it. The bottom-up urban movements are able to provide some guidance for us to challenge the status quo of the city, in the direction of making it more open and livable. My thesis is a report of today’s grassroot urban initiatives in Budapest and questions the ability of the hungarian civil society to bury the possocialist past and establish capable mobilizations up to the level of „western” society. Through the analysis of the movements we come across multiple solutions to exisiting issues of the city generated by the neoliberal and profit-oriented processes, highlighting the possibility to carry them out without significant interventions in the urban fabric. The main point of the thesis is that despite of the imperfection of the movements and the conditions there are already several succesful urban grassroot organisations in Budapest. Relying on them the next step should be regional and international networking because only together can a better city and society be formed.