EVALUATING SUSTAINABILITY OF URBAN DEVELOPMENT OF THE SMALL TOWNS IN ROMANIA

11th International Multidisciplinary Scientific GeoConference SGEM2011, www.sgem.org, SGEM2011 Conference Proceedings/ ISSN 1314-2704, June 20-25, 2011, Vol. 3, 1065-1072 pp

ABSTRACT

In the new context of European urban and environmental politics, Romania’s small
towns must go directly toward sustainability in order to ensure high life quality for their
communities on the long term. The smallest urban settlements of Romania are
confronted with diverse issues due to the former communist regime, the adaptation to
the market economy, the planning policy of the sate and historical environment state. As
many urban sustainability assessment methods were developed in literature, the present
study is focus upon interrelations and interdependencies of social, economic and
environmental development evaluation, applied in the case of small Romanian townswhich
can play, at local level, a significant role of polarization or decentralization
phenomenon.

The paper tries to offer a geographical image of the urban development in order to help
minimizing the gap among theory and practice and to offer a tool for estimation of
sustainability both for local authorities and case-studies research.

Keywords: sustainability, small towns, Romania, urban development, environment