EVALUATING SUSTAINABILITY OF URBAN DEVELOPMENT OF THE SMALL TOWNS IN ROMANIA

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 towns- which 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.