In this paper, I investigate how industrialization and urbanization changed Western— and East‑Central Europe between the mid‑nineteenth and mid‑twentieth. I aim to analyze the relationship between economic development and their environmental consequences in Great Britain, Germany, and Hungary. I aim to point out the connection between extensive economic development
and environmental pollution, and to show the uniformity of industrial and urban changes and their environmental consequences, whether they unfolded in Western–, or in East‑Central Europe.