Volume IX, Number 2, 2013

ABSTRACT – The decision of the Romanian Government to connect Romania closer to the realities of the European Union, including administration, imposes the introduction of a new taxon, the regional one, equivalent to NUTS 2 level, which did not exist before in the panoply of the national spatial entities. This has generated a special effervescence of concerns in the field, reflected in the elaboration of numerous regionalization scenarios, based on various criteria, from the geographical ones to the economic, social, political, or heteroclite ones. This is the context in which the model of territorial division presented below was elaborated. The model was submitted to the attention of the Romanian Geographical Society during its annual Conference held in Timişoara on 25-27 May 2013, being unanimously voted by the specialists in Geography attending the meeting.

ABSTRACT – The development of the new economy in Eastern and Central Europe involves a complexity of economic and social processes. The sectoral structures and territorial location of the industry and the higher education show significant inequalities. Capital city concentration, low level of research orientation and insufficient linkages with industries are the most important barriers to the development of higher education and reindustrialization. The regional and cohesion policies need strong relations between economic restructuring and higher education development. The paper focuses on demonst­rating the regional differences in these fields and proposes the development of environmental industry and a disciplinary reform in the university training and R&D.

ABSTRACT – In this article, we try to give an overview about the major changes and shifts that have determined the functioning of the spatial planning system in Romania. In this respect, we use the major legislative acts and the official planning documents from different scales (national, regional, and local) and the personal experiences in the development of different spatial planning documents as major information sources. The main results confirm that, while there is an evident Europeanization of the planning institutions and documents on national level, the local and regional levels are still strongly context dependent, mixing characteristics of three major planning styles: comprehensive integrated, land-use oriented, and urbanism.

ABSTARCT – The objective of this study is to present and analyze the regional and local distribution of the funds allocated by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), European fund that finances rural development in Romania, in the post-accession period. This financing instrument was created by the European Union with the order to continue the main directions of investment of Special Pre-Accession Programme for Agriculture and Rural Development (SAPARD). As a member state of the European Union, Romania observes the principles of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) while the development of the Romanian rural area for the programming period 2007-2013 is supported by the European Community through the National Rural Development Programme (RDP). This approach pays special attention to improving the quality of life in rural areas and the diversification of the rural economy because local communities in Romania have experienced some changes in this period, while accessing EAFRD funds contributed to increased regional disparities between developed and poor areas.

ABSTRACT – This study aims to reveal the characteristics of circular migrants from Java with focus on migration intentions in the future, predicted by variables such as wage, age, length of stay, and level of education. The analysis was done by using binary logistic regression models. The results showed that wage, age, length of stay, and level of education together have a significant effect on the migration intentions of circular migrants from Java. Variables such as wage and education level have a positive effect, while age and length of stay in the destination have a negative effect.

ABSTRACT – Cities have shown remarkable growth due to attraction, economic, social and facilities centralization in the past few decades. Population and urban expansion especially in developing countries, led to lack of resources, land use change from appropriate agricultural land to urban land use and marginalization. Under these circumstances, land use activity is a major issue and challenge for town and country planners. Different approaches have been attempted in urban expansion modelling. Artificial Neural network (ANN) models are among knowledge-based models which have been used for urban growth modelling. ANNs are powerful tools that use a machine learning approach to quantify and model complex behaviour and patterns. In this research, ANN and logistic regression have been employed for interpreting urban growth modelling. Our case study is Sanandaj city and we used Landsat TM and ETM+ imageries acquired at 2000 and 2006. The dataset used includes distance to main roads, distance to the residence region, elevation, slope, and distance to green space. Percent Area Match (PAM) obtained from modelling of these changes with ANN is equal to 90.47% and the accuracy achieved for urban growth modelling with Logistic Regression (LR) is equal to 88.91%. Percent Correct Match (PCM) and Figure of Merit for ANN method were 91.33% and 59.07% and then for LR were 90.84% and 57.07%, respectively.

ABSTRACT – Spatial differences have become an obstacle for Hungarian competiveness. In addition, the use or little use of brownfields has even more deepened regional inequalities. In our opinion, the lack of brownfields revitalisation and lack of opportunities forced population to migrate. Circular migration would be a solution to decrease regional inequalities. However, the non-revitalisation of rust areas prevents implementation of the process. Circular migration means that the labour force emigrates from the region, but it comes back later and then they use their competent, acquired knowledge (which they got somewhere else) successfully to their investments. This process is not fulfilled, as the non-revitalised brownfields are attractive neither for population, nor for investors. Our research is based on 263 questionnaires. The major question groups of the questionnaires are: expectations regarding the labour market, assessment of home environment and related expectations, the history and structure of labour relations, employment-related information, potential employees, interpersonal social capital, income use plans, value system structures. All in all, the rust fields’ revitalisation is essential to keep the workforce and population. Our research aims to contribute to a complex revitalization strategy, which should have a significant role in the retention of labour, and its repatriation.

ABSTRACT – The present study is descriptive-analytical and its purpose is to identify and analyze the positive and negative effects of industrial town construction before and after construction on the surrounding villages by using the survey method. The statistical population of this study is 14,647 residents in the surrounding villages around Ilam industrial town. 250 members of this population were chosen as sample members by random sampling method based on Cochran’s sampling formula. Comparison of the studied regions by Wilcoxon test (before and after industrial town construction) indicates that this industrial town could not positively influence this area. All in all, the result is that the studied industrial town has no considerable positive effect on the development and stability of its surrounding villages.

ABSTRACT – Rural tourism is now determined by limited economic opportunities, poor infrastructure, low motivation to possible offers, lack of proper service guarantees. Nearly 500 Romanian villages are already tourist locations, with certain characteristics determined by a heritage item, or complex ones when multiple components lead to various activities. This paper includes a typology of tourist villages in Romania according to the types of practiced tourist activities, insisting on the use of a more comprehensive terminology: tourism in rural environment, participative and creative tourism in rural areas. Tourism becomes a system accepted in the rural environment as a real opportunity for economic development with multiple social consequences. By multiplying tourism potential to meet tourists’ demands, many villages will get tourism valences with various activities in this filed, including environment protection.

ABSTRACT – Health infrastructure is one of the weaknesses of socio-economic development in Romania and in other European states. In order to get a better picture of the Romanian health system issues, this paper analyzes a number of statistical indicators considered representative for the national and European health infrastructure for a 20 years period, between 1990 and 2010. Our paper has three main objectives: (a) to identify the main trends for health infrastructure in some of the European Union countries; (b) to describe the evolution of the health system in Romania, the comparative situation at the European level as well as regional level indicators dynamics; (c) to overview the Regional Operational Program in Romania, how much does it help the regional health infrastructure in our country. At the European level, there is a constant decrease in the number of hospital beds. For this indicator, Romania has slightly higher values than the European average. We must mention that the hospital beds indicator offers limited information on health infrastructure which also includes medical equipment and specific devices and practices. The number of hospitals in Romania increased with 18.9% during the last 20 years (1990-2010). During the observed timeline, the number of hospitals in Romania had a constant positive evolution at regional level. The number of doctors in hospitals has an increasing trend at the local as well as at the international level. Romania has a number of doctors twice lower than the European average (3.6 doctors for one thousand inhabitants). The Regional Operational Program (ROP) has a limited influence in achieving the objectives stated in Applicants Guide for Priority Axis 3. Major Intervention Area 3.1. This happens because supporting infrastructure improvements will not create institutional modernization. The financial contribution through ROP will result in the modernization of 11% of the existing hospitals in Romania.

ABSTRACT – Due to the advantages offered by agglomerations, human activities have always concentrated, and cities have become multifunctional places: living places, places where goods and services are produced, culture and socialisation places. Nowadays however, the negative effects produced by agglomerations often get to overbalance the positive effects and to repel people and activities. Agglomerations often become impersonal and unfamiliar. They are no longer a “lived space” and people can hardly wait to “evade” at least during the weekend. Among the development factors for which a city should be attractive, Qualified Workforce (QwF) has become the main one, due to the knowledge society we live in. In the Western societies, the QwF has met its basic, material needs, also aiming to meet the others that are linked to the Quality of Life (QoL) (safety, health, mobility, leisure, etc.). That is why the attractiveness for the development factors is more and more linked to the QoL that a city offers, the bicycle being able to bring a large number of answers in this direction. By means of this study, we will try to show the influence that the bicycle has on the urban attractiveness factors. We will find out that the bicycle influences them all and, moreover, without producing any drawbacks in other domains. It exercises however the most powerful effects on two of the most important soft factors of attractiveness, namely QoL and image. By noting the increasing importance of the soft factors in relation to the hard factors, we will be able to sustain the opportunity of investing in facilities for bicycle. Moreover, we will show that a city which aims to remain competitive on the global market of the development factors has no more choices and has to become bicycle-friendly.

ABSTRACT – The town views were a constant preoccupation of the European scientists, artists, geographers and military stuff, sometimes without a distinct separation between them. Starting with the 17th century, the correct representations of space became a predominant military matter, controlled by the engineers of the main monarchies of Europe. Even so, it remained more “space” to conquer and the artists proved to be real agents of change, especially “vedutisti”, concerned to catch that complex genius loci which combines spectacular landmark panoramas with everyday life, choosing Europe’s main cities as scenery. Transylvania region has also experienced a similar process due the influence of the Age of Enlightenment, but with a delay specific to its peripheral geographic position and political status. The city of Cluj-Napoca was one of the favourite subjects of the foreign and local artists, which proved to be very sensitive to the trends of the urban change capturing the local colour as a statement of the historic past, but also as a change in perceiving the urban space. Compared with almost one-sided urban views of the past centuries, the 19th century brings a 360-degree perspective over the urban space, significant for the future development of the city.