Home Gardens – A Current Economic Approach

The past few years have shown an increasing interest of the international scientific community towards strengthening and intensifying local food production in an attempt to mitigate the negative effect of population growth, generalized climate change or food price volatility. Under these circumstances, a resource neglected by the macroeconomics over time has drawn the researchers' attention, and that is home gardens. Regardless of the fact that current research sees this new resource as an element of food security or an improving factor of the nutrition status in rural communities, home gardens in Romania serve as a real rural capital that has passed the test of time and is already an integral part of local food systems. This paper provides a theoretical approach on the notion of home garden, insisting on the social, economic and environmental characteristics and contributions that this economic category brings to host communities and the society as a whole

Functional and Structural Features of Suceava and Botoșani Metropolitan Areas

The development of metropolitan areas is a natural process of urban expansion, achieved through exurbanisation and suburbanisation, whereby urban functions extend into the rural periurban environment. The expansion of the concept of the urban metropolitan area to second tier urban areas encompassing regional hubs is driven by the urban-rural and functional territorial development in the proximity of Suceava and Botoșani municipalities in northern Moldova, which have always evolved in conjunction. The study aimed to identify the relevance of human development indicators and to assess the socio-economic development potential and the ranking of communes that are part of the Association of Botoșani and Suceava Metropolitan areas, amid the development of joint projects and of a metropolitan-type association between the two urban areas. The unfolding of evolutionary metropolitan-type mechanisms in this paired territorial setup is linked to general trends in functional and residential urban expansion into the periurban, to the establishment of periurban hypermarket platforms and, ultimately, to the merging of urban and rural space in an integrated territorial corpus, with prospects for urban and functional development through joint projects. Moreover, the study exposes genetic-evolutionary types of metropolitan spaces in the two areas, differentiated by their size and the urban hub status of each of the two municipalities

The romanian rural/between the reality of agrarian morphology and the typology of the hearths

Most often, the definition of the concept of traditional rural space is generates by a correlation between economic typology elements with typology of the functionality of hearths landscape, as core villages landscape. But in the Romanian rural perspective that will mean reshaping, reconfigurations of morphostructural builted area, that rural outlook will not now match those of the typological and topological analysis, the differences of the hearths on the criteria. So, getting a territorially coherent planning for what is representing the complex space of rural will not be based solely on the reconfiguration of hearths, but especially on landscape generating by interacting of the cultural landscape elements, corresponding to every in other estate of village and its domain. The village’s PUG will need to introduce items of correlation between agricultural and administrative morphology, namely the built-in and out of builted area evolutionary analysis, to really provide a viable document, and specifically applicable to a particular territorial unit defined as rural. On the other hand, the rural Romanian is no longer the exclusive of one economic functionality, namely agriculture, so he should be seen as an area not so anchored genetic - evolution of a territory and, especially, economic sustainability of current functionality and future ones. This way we consider that the allocation of a place in a network, to a given locality may be an element in a much more viable than simply identifying typological hierarchy from morphostructural and textural relationships

Ecological impact of mining brownfields in Bucovina (Romania)

The decline of mining activities in Romania has led to the appearance of large areas of mining waste, buildings and decommissioned equipment. Known by the name of mining wastelands, they challenge both the environment as well as the communities in which they are located. The problems created by the mining wastelands generate shock waves in the development of the rural territories hosting them and block their sustainable development. This paper highlights the stages of the evolution of different types of mining wastelands in Bukovina, with an emphasis on the environmental component, as well as on their possible integration using various forms of valorization. The data was gathered in 2017 as part of a research called “La dynamique des paysages culturels intégrant des aires avec des friches minières. Rétrospectives et perspectives géographique en Bucovine (Roumanie) et en Wallonie (Belgique)”, funded by “L`Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie”. We used the Rapid Impact Assessment Matrix (RIAM) methodology to assess the environmental impact of mining wastelands, which included 5 evaluation criteria and 15 components investigated (6 physical-geographical and ecological components, plus 9 socio-economic and cultural ones). The findings indicate that the ecological impact of abandoned mining areas is directly related to the area they occupy as well as the morphoclimatic system in which they are located. The socioeconomic component analysis highlighted the role of mine closure in increasing unemployment and lowering living standards, as well as a community takeover of some infrastructure elements through direct involvement of local government

The local development options in the Dornas region, between the economic diversifications activities inequalities and the occupations rates of the populations

The profile of employment in rural areas is critical given the prevalence in the agricultural employment, in what is called subsistence farming. Removing this point and getting out a real development is the prerogative of each rural community to establish, through local development strategies, economic priorities, not at least, financial resources to support them. Data at our disposal have allowed exploration of rural employment situation in the Dornas Country, the localities where unequal development is uneven, both economic and social reality. Thus, rural communities located near the municipium Vatra Dornei have been developed in recent years especially with new residential areas, that have benefited the most from the investments have been concentrated in these areas, developing in an accelerate rhythm. However, after these changes, socio-demographic profile of the population has changed as a result of increasing the attractiveness of living in these localities, which led to immigration (especially from urban to rural). Another economic and social reality of the Dorna Country- Land we made highlighted in a rural area defined in the bottom of the Dorna Depression core, in villages as Poiana Stampei, Panaci, Dorna Candrenilor and Dorna Arini, where development options take into consideration, long term agri-tourism, rural tourism and ecotourism activities

Frişã, brownfield or paraginã – dilemmas and reasonings for a comprehensive concept

The article originates in an empiric research blocked at the level of theory. The present work deals with two types of arguments: semantic and case-based, questioning the adoption of a neologism: the concept of “frişa1”. Although the domain aimed at is geography,the new term could be transferred towards all research domains that have in common the phenomenon represented by abandoned fields and buildings, that is urbanism and planning, sociology, economy, ecology, culture, defense, etc. Methodologically speaking, there had been three stages. After the semantic analysis of the main terms in French, English and Romanian, we identified the theoretical grounds of the phenomenon they designate. In order to have a proper view upon the present day perception of the phenomenon we looked for information both in the research field and in that of economy, politics and local administration. Our personal survey can be added to these sources and one can say that they all allowed the selection of case study examples that can support the authors’ intention.The source of confusion that inevitably appears in the context of the present article is due to the difficulty in choosing a truly solid concept that could the best choice among all the other Romanian subject-versions. We need to adopt a unifying concept to define all these phenomena presented only as a succession of examples. Although they are apparently different manifestations, they are ultimately focusing upon the same thing: a material understructure that is not used and thus becomes degraded. We may speak about the simultaneity of these phenomena and therefore we could establish a certain typology, which is another stage in our preoccupations with this new, yet not exclusively unifying concept.</p

LOCAL PERCEPTION ON THE DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES OF MOLDOVIȚA TERRITORIAL SYSTEM

The development strategies broadly mirror the vision of the public administrations upon the territorial evolution and hereupon convey their perception into local policies of valorification of the existing resources. Albeit the methodologies standing at the base of development strategies for the communes already encloses interviewing the citizens on matters concerning the development process, the present study aims to catch the very perception of the inhabitants belonging to Moldovița territorial system upon the local development by comparative interrogation of two target groups, namely, the 12grade students from Moldovița and Vatra Moldoviței communes and their parents. Processing the questionnaire revealed, depending on the plans targeted, both a unity of opinions regarding the tourism development and distinct differences on understanding the future role of the woods, migration or infrastructure. The difference in vision upon development in the case of the two groups interviewed shows, in our opinion, the degree of concrete grip held by the local development strategies on the economic exercise for which they are made. Thus, youngsters mostly wish for the development of tourism and access facilities, while their parents have a wider range of opinions largely anchored to the traditional economic development of the community

The development areas - between cohesion and disparities

The current development regions are composed by counties with very different development levels, and the urban centres they include are also characterised by different polarisation abilities. Great differences persist among the Romanian development regions, created in order to mitigate the development discrepancies existing in Romania. The comparative analysis of socio-economic development, attractiveness and quality of life benchmarks, from the beginning of these territorial constructions to the current time, seeks to outline the extent to which they have led to a rebalancing or, on the contrary, to greater disparities, not only within the development areas themselves, but also at national leve