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Volume XVIII |

Post-Communist Urban Ecologies of Romanian Medium-Sized Towns

Abstract: The post-communist policies on urban restructuring were the driving force in redundant and marginalized spaces’ reproduction in all Romanian cities and towns. The paper investigates post-communist urban ecologies and derelict urban environments in Romanian small-sized municipalities, since these issues remain peripheral in the contemporary research on post-communist urban identity formation of the cities. The research was conducted in the town of Lugoj of Romania, from 2012 to 2016. It bases on empirical data provided by ethnographic analysis, quantitative approach and qualitative investigation. The results unveil a massive decline of some urban areas managed by post-communist policies on urban regeneration, with negative consequences, risk potential and derelict landscapes threatening the local urban welfare. Therefore, these marginal places request further enhancement urban policies to reduce their negative results claiming for more attention by the side of local governments.

Volume XVII |

An evaluation of the human resources potential of the Western Region (Romania)

Abstract: The data analysed in the present study show that the human resources potential of the Western Region is limited in nature and characterised by disparities that are multidimensional from both the quantitative and the qualitative point of view. When we consider the region in terms of its administrative sub-units, we find areas that have human resources that are surplus to requirements but insufficiently developed and structurally unbalanced (Hunedoara county), others with high-quality but numerically limited human resources and with great potential for attracting them from other areas (Arad and Timiş counties) and a case of an area whose human resources are both insufficiently developed and deficient from a quantitative point of view (Caraş-Severin county).