PUBLIC POLICIES FOR COMMUNITIES REGENERATION IN MONO-INDUSTRIAL AREAS CASE STUDY: JIU VALLEY, HUNEDOARA COUNTY

Abstract

25 years after communism has fallen, mono-industrial areas suffer from passing to capitalism. All the mutations produced in time from workers’ migration in micro-regions, territorial closeness and the lack of identity produced closed systems based on the exhaustion of the prime sources that could have contributed to wealth. Jiu Valley is this kind of an example, being the urban area found at the greatest distance from the Western Development Region’s center, Timisoara Municipality. Sustainable development should have started in the Jiu Valley region from the lowest level, but restoring communities that have depended for over 150 years for mining exploitations represent a very slow process, deferred by the lack of concern and involvement from the local authorities. In this paper we analyze the possibility to implement public policies that can lead former industry workers and their families, living the urban fringe that is the most physical and moral degraded, to new means of improvement for their wellness parameters. This represents balancing the economic – ecologic – social – governance scheme through a correct exploitation of local renewable resources and utilizing the potential of environment, respectively by strengthening communities, civic spirit and education level in the essential domains. Being a bottom-up one, this kind of a project counts on fulfilling the prime needs of every family and forming prepared leaders that can be included in the process of strategic spatial planning for sustainable micro-region development. Creating resilient systems at a low scale leads to economic independency for the smallest community units (neighborhoods and proximity unit), and also to building-up knowledge and interchange systems.

Keywords: Des-industrializationsustainable developmentgood governancecommunityregenerationresilience