New Rural-Urban Relationships in Romania: Issues at the Rural-Urban Fringe of Bucharest

Romania, as many other East-European countries, is a space of various and profound changes in the last two decades. Having a more rigid totalitarian regime than other ex-communist countries determined a slower evolution of its socio-economic and spatial structures, therefore this country experienced after the political events in 1989 a strong flux of changes beginning with the political and legal system and including all the socio-economic components. This all new evolution involves the rural-urban relationships. The two worlds (urban and rural), stone-still structures before 1989, are new emerging forms. Even though they are totally different, they interpenetrate as a result of the demographic and economic flows, giving birth to a new space in the urban-rural fringe. This paper analyzes this kind of spaces focusing on the periphery of Bucharest, the capital of Romania. The largest and functionally most complex city of this country, Bucharest is enlarging, having a strong impact on the neighbouring rural settlements. These villages have experienced important socio-demographic, functional and environmental transformations in the last 20 years, which are spatially determined by the location of the settlements in relation with the city and by their natural potential. The knowledge of this process is very important and gives the specialists the opportunity to understand and conceptualize it, and then implement the best policies and programs to solve the emerging problems.