178 Abstract Having in view the low absorption of Euro- pean funds, it is extremely necessary to have a regional administrative system put in place. The present paper, based on a many-sided critical study of functional relations among human set- tlements, offers a viable alternative to current controversies concerning Romania’s adminis- trative-territorial organization. Proceeding from regional, county and local polarization cores, a four-level type of regional administration has been devised, namely, the region, the coun- ty, the small rural district (Rom. plasă) and the town/commune, among which clear-cut hierar- chical relations of decentralization and concen- tration of services are to be established. What has emerged is a number of eleven administra- tive-territorial structures worth being vested with regional administrative status. These structures are based on the historical regions developed over time as homogeneous mental and function- al spaces. Keywords: administrative organization, regional converging centers, relations, territory, Romania. A PROPOSAL FOR ROMANIA’S ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION BASED ON FUNCTIONAL RELA- TIONS IN THE TERRITORY Radu SĂGEATĂ Radu SĂGEATĂ Researcher, Institute of Geography, Romanian Academy, Bucharest, Romania Tel.: 0040-213-135.990 E-mail: radu_sageata@yahoo.com Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences, No. 46 E/2015, pp. 178-196 179 1. Introduction Regional development over the last twenty years has been focusing the interest of scientifi c research, becoming a major topic of discussion for the central and lo- cal authorities, for entrepreneurs and public opinion alike. The reason for assessing the economic and social disparities of regional development is twofold. In the fi rst place, the offi cial documents elaborated in Romania after 1990 show that inter- and intra-regional gaps have widened because, despite all the policies trying to equal- ize development opportunities, regional polarization is still powerful. In the second place, traditional regional disparities across the Romanian territory continued to exist in the second half of the 20th century despite declared eff orts to att enuate them (Anto- nescu, 2003). The steep economic decline of the 1990s was amply refl ected also in the political-administrative decisions which shifted from the ideological perspective to a dominantly economic one. A fi rst step in this direction had in view the principle of restitutio in integrum which characterized most political decisions in matt ers of legis- lation up to the mid-1990s, when a number of laws were passed regulating the situa- tion of nationalized houses, rehabilitating some political personalities of the inter-war period, stipulating the objective presentation of Romania’s contemporary history and of the communist system, in an att empt to correct the arbitrary decisions made by the regime abolished in 1989. In line with this rehabilitation policy, they decided to re-establish the administrative-territorial structures dismantled in 1950 (Săgeată and Simileanu, 2007). Romania’s offi cial request for EU membership lodged on June 22, 1995 opened up the road to negotiations for assuming the European Community Aquis. As regards the administrative-territorial structures, that moment marked the development of ini- tiatives to set up territorial units comparable in area and demographic size to regions in Europe. The idea of integrating former administrative structures gained ground against proposals of fragmentation based on the former county patt ern. As a result, the eight development regions emerged in 1996 constituted the territorial framework for the implementation of development policies. They were mentioned in the Green Paper. Regional – Development Policy in Romania, elaborated by the Government and the European Commission, the 1997 PHARE Program and sanctioned by Law no. 151/1998 on Regional Development in Romania (Benedek, 2004; Bakk and Benedek, 2010). Now and then, the regional development policy catches public att ention and fun- damental questions are being raised concerning the legitimacy, representativeness and functionality of these regions. Those contesting these att ributes are reminded of the necessity to have a regional framework capable to meet also EU requirements. Supported or criticized, regional development still poses many questions that need to be answered, moreover so, as the process of integration will turn the Continent into a ‘Europe of regions’ (Labasse, 1991). The poor absorption of European funds at local level has re-opened the polemic about the viability of existing counties. Within the current territorial patt ern, counties 180 are not large enough to allow small, local projects to become part of comprehensive regional strategic projects. Besides, a more effi cient absorption of European funds de- voted to local development projects requires the substantive reduction of costs and of public administrative bureaucracy, a bett er correlation between public decision-mak- ing, the specifi c needs and problems of local communities and their particular de- velopment opportunities distinctively diff erent for each of them (www.advocacy. ro). Att aining these goals implies forming regional territorial structures (NUTS 2) by amassing existing counties or new ones, the viability of which depends on creating administrative regions matching territorial functional relations and fl uxes among the regional sett lement system. Proceeding from the European and Romanian experience in the political-adminis- trative regionalization of the territory, the work suggests an administrative-territorial outline of Romania based on the functional relations between sett lements and the distance between polarization cores and subordinated sett lements. The main admin- istrative-territorial regionalization models of EU-member states according to their particularities, as well as the main post-1989 directions and trends of manifestation within this area have been considered. In view of it, the author advances an alterna- tive solution for Romania’s administrative-territorial regionalization, relying on the functional relations set at the level of the human sett lement system. 2. European experiences Regions in the EU vary widely in terms of origin and structure. The great territo- rial and demographic disparities between regions in the EU Member States, as well as between those within individual states are the outcome of the specifi c way in which each of them was formed and evolved in the course of history. In view of this reality, some unitary principles of regional development policies were being elaborated for the entire space of the European Economic Community (EEC) as early as 1972; in 1975, the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) was created with the aim of implementing regional development and eliminating territorial unbalances (An- tonescu, 2011). A unitary basis for analysis of all the economic and social phenom- ena throughout the EEC space was developed as late as 1988, when the European Statistical Offi ce (Eurostat) issued the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statis- tics (NUTS). Initially, it contained three hierarchical levels (NUTS I – macro-regional, equivalent to federal; NUTS II – regional, and NUTS III – department or county level) distinguished by certain demographic thresholds (Table 1). This working tool facili- tated the correspondence between regional levels in the EU states, on the one hand, and between them and the administrative structures of national states, on the other (Alexandru, Ivanoff and Gilia, 2007). This standardization has led to distinguishing two categories of regions: – Administrative or political-administrative regions with a deeply-rooted regional identity built over some long periods of time, that also have a unitary cultural, ethnical and linguistic background (the Lands in Germany, the regions and depart- 181 ments in France, the regions and provinces in Italy and Belgium, the autonomous communities in Spain, etc.); – Statistical-territorial regions, kind of artifi cial make-up, devoid of any regional personality or historical antecedents, the outcome of the aggregation of existing lower-rank territorial-administrative units (ZEAT in France, regieungsbezirk in Germany, landsdelen in The Netherlands, standard regions and groupings of comi- tats in the United Kingdom, amter groupings in Denmark, groupings of development regions in Greece, groupings of autonomous communities in Spain, or development regions in Romania) (Săgeată, 2008a). Later on, this hierarchization was supplemented with other two statistical-terri- torial levels: NUTS IV, based on inter-commune structures, and NUTS V, based on the commune. At present, the Romanian regional system has the following statisti- cal-territorial levels: NUTS II (sanctioned by Law no. 151/1998, comprises 8 develop- ment regions without administrative and juristic person status, average population number / region 2.8 million inhabitants); NUTS III (41 counties and Bucharest Mu- nicipium, represents Romania’s administrative-territorial structure) and NUTS V (320 towns, among which 103 municipia (except Bucharest) and 2,859 communes with 13,285 villages (on January 1st, 2013). The Romanian regional structures, patt erned on the British model of inter-com- munal association, are marked by higher inter-regional disparities than the intra-re- gional ones, a situation that restricts the degree of territorial cohesion and implicitly of functionality. Therefore, in the author’s opinion, a regional outline based on histor- ical regions, which in time have developed individual traits according to traditions, urban polarization areas, complementary social-economic particularities and a homo- geneous cultural and spiritual heritage, would be the solution (Săgeată, 2004a). The functional att ributes of these regions are embedded in the inhabitants’ psyche, the region becoming actually a mental space, a space of reference for the locals, of communion between man and his life environment, a fundamental element for any space structure to be sustainable. Mental spaces are also functional spaces, as well as homogeneous ethnical and cultural spaces, structured from bott om to top according to the relationships established among the local communities (Cocean, 1997, 2002). Most regions in Europe are largely mental spaces, shaped by a long-lasting historical process (Duby, 1995). There are cases when the locals’ regional identity is stronger than their national identity (Flanders and Wollonia in Belgium, the Länder in Germany and Austria, the regions in Italy and France, or the autonomous communities in Spain). Table 1: The demographic thresholds of the fi rst territorial-statistical levels Statistical territorial levels Demographic thresholds (inh.) Maximum Minimum NUTS I 3,000,000 7,000,000 NUTS II 800,000 3,000,000 NUTS III 150,000 800,000 Source: EEC Report (1991) 182 Therefore, we would say that the regions which have become mental spaces are also the most viable ones for gett ing administrative status. Romania’s territory has three types of mental spaces corresponding to three distinct spatial levels: macro-territory – the historical provinces; middle territory – the historical lands (the former small rural district seats, e.g., the Land of Vrancea – Ţara Vrancei), and micro-territory (com- munes) (Cocean and Ciangă, 1999-2000). 3. An administrative-territorial history of regions in Romania The territorial evolution of Romania has been very much infl uenced by the coun- try’s geographical position at the cross-roads of Central, Southern and Eastern Eu- rope. In view of it, the geopolitical context of the evolution of the Romanian national state has been a complex and unstable one. Having as neighbors the most powerful empires in mediaeval and contemporary times (the Habsburg Empire in the west, the Ott oman Empire in the south and the Russian Empire in the east), the country inev- itably fell into their sphere of infl uence. The mix of population and the geopolitical pressure produced multiple cultural infl uences of diff erent origin and impact: Grae- co-Byzantine, Slav and Turkish in the south; Turanian and Russian in the east; Polish and Austrian in the north; Hungarian and German in the west and center, adding to the Romanian people’s Latin and Orthodox substrate. Like in many other states, and especially in those of Central and Eastern Europe, Romania’s territorial make-up was a stagewise process that began in 1859 with the unifi cation of the two Romanian Principalities – Moldavia and Wallachia. As early as 1862, the fi rst legislative initiative concerning the administrative-territorial organiza- tion expressed the necessity for the creation of some space units, the size of regions, capable to administer the territory effi ciently. The bill drafted by Barbu Catargiu had in view to establish a bett er link among the country’s regions, between the central power and the local administrations. It provided for the establishment of four gen- eral prefectures (North, Maritime, Central and East) including 6-9 counties (Rom. ju- deţe). The idea of delimiting some regional areas is constantly advanced in most of the future administrative-territorial units (Rom. general căpitănii); in 1907 and 1912, P.P. Carp suggested still other units (Rom. dregătorii), and regional circumscriptions, respectively (Erdeli, 1997). In 1918, as a result of the Peace Treaties signed at the end of the First World War, The Greater Union added new provinces (Basarabia, Bucovina and Transylvania) to the national territory, fact that highlighted inter-regional disparities not only in the economy and in the social and transport infrastructure, but also in the administra- tive-territorial divisions. The long period of time in which the Romanians cohabitat- ed with other nationalities in territories administered by diff erent imperial capitals made them have diff erent opinions on administration than the central-based ones promoted in the ‘Old Kingdom’ of Romania (formed of Wallachia and Moldavia). As a consequence, the political class, the representatives of the national minorities and the Romanians who lived in Transylvania, Basarabia, Bucovina and the Cadrilat- 183 er (South Dobrogea) sustained that the best environment in which national cohesion and a climate of tolerance between the majority population and the minorities could develop was a decentralized administrative structure that would allow inhabitants from diff erent parts of the country to keep their old institutions, distinguishing their culture and traditions from those of neighboring regions. They considered that true unity could not be att ained by ignoring the diff erences existing between various parts of the national territory, because they had evolved under distinct political systems; neither by trying to equalize all existing systems, because the main goal of govern- ment should be to ensure national unity in diversity (Săgeată, 2006). This distinct legacy refl ected in the administrative map of Romania (1918-1925) on which the heterogeneous administrative-territorial structures that were formed and developed under diff erent political-administrative systems were associated (Săgeată, 2008b). This is why, in the inter-war period, almost all the important political parties and the scientifi c elite used to elaborate projects of administrative unifi cation; some of those projects had in view the creation of a centralized system, others promot- ed administrative regionalism based on decentralization and local autonomy. This desideratum was passed into the 1925 Law for Administrative unifi cation which established that Romania’s territory would be divided in 71 counties through the unifi cation of six counties in Bucovina (Cotmani, Gura Humorului, Siret, Văşcăuţi, Vijniţa and Zastavna) and the separation of Caraş-Severin into two counties: Caraş and Severin. The existence of a large number of counties whose area, economic potential, de- mographic potential and number of fi rst-rank administrative-territorial units was distinctively diff erent, made it imperative to associate in order to create the optimal environment for a bett er collaboration in sett ing up, or maintaining, social-economic and cultural institutions (Săgeată, 1999). Association did not imply territorial merg- ing, but the creation of a judicial and institutional framework to att ain a series of specifi c objectives. This process materialized in the inter-war period by the succes- sive formation of macro-regional administrative structures through the aggregation of counties: ministerial directorates (1929-1931) and lands (Rom. ţinuturi) (1938-1940). When, on March 6th 1945, the fi rst pro-Soviet communist political party came to power, ample mutations in the administrative-territorial organization of the country took place. They did not constitute an immediate priority as the 1948 Constitution preserved the former classifi cation into communes, plase (small rural districts) and counties. The political subordination of the territorial-administrative structures be- came a reality only on September 8, 1950, when the law stipulated that the country’s territory was to be divided in 28 regions and, following the Soviet model, in rayons (districts) and communes. These divisions were not based on geographical or historical criteria as in 1929, but only on considerations of ‘social-economic complexity’. The only units that met this criterion were those ‘directly supporting the state’s central bodies in implementing state or party policies’ (Oroveanu, 1986). Their confi guration 184 did not resemble the former counties, which had been delimited mostly by natural borders, basically the Carpathian Arc and the Danube. The rationale behind sett ing up administrative units twice larger than the former counties was to subordinate the agricultural regions to the larger urban centers and in this way achieve an integrated agri-industrial complex and strengthen the infl u- ence of the proletariat over the peasantry who was reluctant to accept the ‘reform’ imposed by the communist political class. The establishment of large administrative divisions instead of the 58 counties had considerably reduced the number of adminis- trative centers, so that investments were to be earmarked mainly to the former units. The 28 regions were outlined on economic criteria, in line with the Soviet adminis- trative patt ern, but they soon proved to be a much too fragmented structure, incapa- ble of coping with the political requirements of the time. They could not survive the 1952 Constitution which, more than the 1948 one, copied the Soviet model. Thus, dif- ferent processes of unifi cation caused the disappearance of 12 regions, two new ones being formed: Craiova through the merging of Dolj and Gorj regions, and The Hun- garian Autonomous Region, a copy of the oblasts (Soviet administrative units), bringing together the territories inhabited by the Szecklers of Covasna, Harghita and Mureş. These new regions were not large enough, so that four years later, in 1956, two of them, Arad and Bârlad, were dissolved. At the same time, the former patt ern suff ered some changes, in that districts from one region were incorporated into another. After the retreat of the Soviet troops from Romania (1958) and the elaboration of a policy pinpointing on national values, old national names reappeared on the coun- try’s administrative map. The transition was thus made from a Soviet-type communist stage, characterized by Stalinist uniformity and rejection of the ‘bourgeois’ past, to a nationalist commu- nist stage of respect for the national past and its connotations, rejecting the Russo-So- viet cultural model of Stalinist inspiration. So, the year 1960 witnessed a new admin- istrative reform that modifi ed once again the structure and confi guration of the 16 regions, by eliminating some of them or shifting some districts from one region to another (Helin, 1967). The idea of regionalization had been accepted and debated ever since the foun- dation of the Romanian national state until the communist political system came to power. It appears, however, that the region was a space unit Romanian rulers were not familiar with, nor were they ready to administer it. Larger than the coun- ty (deemed to be the traditional administrative-territorial unit in Romania), the re- gion failed to become an operational notion. Moreover, being patt erned on the Soviet model contributed to its loss of popularity with both planners and public opinion (Enyedi, 1992). The administrative organization into regions and rayons (districts) in 1960 and 1968, had in view a series of particularities of the Romanian territory, such as tradi- tional relationships between the regions in terms of effi cient subordination to the cen- tral political authorities. This would explain recurrent ‘administrative readjustments’ 185 of a non-viable structure. It was a situation artifi cially maintained by the Sovietiza- tion of the entire cultural, economic and social life given that the Red Army troops were stationed on Romanian soil. The political events that had marked the former Communist Bloc between the 6th and the 7th decades, correlated with the retreat of the Soviet army from Romania (1958), enabled Bucharest’s policy to distance itself from Moscow and revert to national values. Against this background, the premises for a new administrative-territorial orga- nization of the country were in place and the law for the administrative organization of the Socialist Republic of Romania was passed on February 17, 1968; it stipulated a two-level territorial organization, an upper level, the city and a lower, local level, the commune (Oroveanu, 1986). The 39 counties were based on the inter-war patt ern inspired by the French de- partment model. Whereas the regions created in 1950 were based on the principle of a homogeneous economic potential, the counties established in 1968 were intended to be functional structures, including several types of geographical units with varied resources liable to facilitating economic complementariness (Argeş, Dâmboviţa, Buzău, Prahova, Vrancea, Gorj, Bihor, Timiş, Satu Mare, Maramureş, etc.) (Stahl, 1969). Even the counties with an apparently uniform relief, such as those situated in the lowland, had a variety of microforms on their territory, resulting from the association of mead- ows and of the two lakes formed by the Danube. The counties were conceived to be, in theory at least, diff erent in terms of structure and potential (Judeţele României Social- iste, 1969). As far as surface-area was concerned, the counties did not vary so much as they had used to (the ratio between the two extremes – Timiş and Covasna being 2.37 to 6.6 at the administrative organization of 1925), but signifi cant numerical diff erences among communes did exist: e.g., 33 communes in Covasna County and 125 in Ilfov County. The oversized Ilfov County, conceived to be polarized by Bucharest, the cap- ital of Romania, was not viable, being reorganized in 1981. The absence of major administrative decisions between 1968 and 1988 led to the accumulation of tensions in inter-sett lement relations when, at the beginning of 1989, the urban network was enlarged and 23 sett lements were raised to town status, most of them discharging agri-industrial functions. These new towns were situated in poorly polarized areas, deeply rural, and the counties they were part of had no ur- ban network of their own. Suburban communes, arbitrarily included into the urban area, were to become rural communes. After 1990, several currents of opinion on the administrative-territorial organization of Romania would emerge. One of them, vocal right after that year, upheld the multiplication of the number of counties by re-estab- lishing the ‘counties dismantled in an abusive manner’ under the 1950 administra- tive reform which copied the Soviet model (Iordan and Alexandrescu, 1996). Others contended that the number of counties should be halved, in keeping with EU NUTS, otherwise they might ‘suff ocate local autonomy, turning counties into poorer territo- rial communities, hence more state-dependent’ (Popescu, 1999). A third set of opin- 186 ions, solidly substantiated by geographical studies, maintained the delimitation of the administrative-territorial structures proceeding from the main polarizing centers (which could be assigned an administrative function), and the relations among them (Săgeată, 2000, 2006, 2011a, 2011b). 4. An analysis of the main post-1989 opinion currents concerning regionalization in Romania While before 1989 stress was laid on the fragmentation of administrative-territori- al structures and a comeback to the interwar patt ern (Iordan and Alexandrescu, 1996; Iordan, 2003) in 1995, when Romania became a EU candidate state, the situation was reconsidered, the majority of options being for macro-regional structures larger than counties, comparable in terms of surface-area and demographic size with the regional structure of most European Union Member States. So, Law no. 151/1998, modifi ed and updated by Law no. 315/2004, sanctioned the formation of eight development regions. However, they have no administrative status, being now simply statistically reported territorial units (Dumitrescu, 2008). What current polemic is about is just the transformation of these units into coun- ties. Swift proposals, underlain by political reasons, have been made without special- ist advice or public opinion views. Proposals to amass present counties into regional structures (NUTS 2) Two political parties have already advanced proposals in this direction: 1. the Democrat-Liberal Party wishes the present development regions to be given administrative status (Cozmei, 2012); 2. the Magyar Democratic Union in Romania and the Magyar Civic Party, agreed by Hungary, insist on the formation of a ‘Szekler’ Land patt erned on the former Magyar Autonomous Region (1952-1960), and a new administrative delimitation at Romania’s north-west frontier similar to the 1940-1944 one (Vulpe, 2011). A much more realistic proposal, fi tt ing into the present-day economic-social reali- ties of this country, upholds an administrative re-organization into 10 regions (Şoica, 2012; Cocean, 2013). This regionalization model proceeds from the historical regions, which had been functional territorial structures, a quality acquired by a long experience. With a few exceptions, this proposal suggests amassing existing counties into re- gional territorial structures that do not coincide with the polarization areas of coun- ty-seats. In our view, an administrative-territorial organization should partially over- lap with the historical provinces, without ignoring the hierarchy of administrative centers of urban polarization areas, nor the functional relations established among them, either. As a matt er of fact, except for the last proposal (Cocean, 2013), all the other proposals have been made by the representatives of some political parties. Thus, the Liberal Democratic Party – PDL suggested reducing the administrative ap- paratus and have a bett er control over the central administration in the territory; the 187 Magyar Democratic Party – UDMR and the Civic Magyar Party – PCM would like a Magyar minority-dominated administrative structure. 5. A proposal for an alternative solution of regional delimitation based on functional relations in the territory The evolution of the Romanian urban system in the last 50 years gave birth to am- ple mutations in the relationships between human sett lements, because investments were preferentially directed towards certain urban centers (fi rst towards county-seats and, after 1968, towards the newly-appointed county-seats), a situation that contrib- uted to increasing the infl uence of urban areas. At macro-territorial level, in order to simplify the implementation of regional de- velopment policies, adjacent administrative units with similar social-economic pro- fi les had to be identifi ed and grouped into historical provinces, well individualized by common traditions, socio-economic complementarities, as well as cultural and spir- itual heritage. Since their functional particularities were refl ected in the inhabitants’ psychology, the region became a mental space, the space which the inhabitants used to refer to for their identity and communion between man and his/her environment, as a fundamental element for the sustainability of any spatial structure (Cocean, 2002). In view of it, the present article aims at establishing a regional-based administra- tive planning system of Romania’s territory, based on the historical provinces which correspond to well-established mental frameworks, and have specifi c functional rela- tions (infrastructure and human interaction systems) that should be augmented. The proposals put forward herein suggest an administrative organization of the Romanian territory proceeding from a regional system. Thus, the intermediate (de- partment) level would be represented by counties (some of them divided in smaller units of the inter-war plasa type), and the lower level by towns and communes. Clear- cut hierarchical relations will be established between these levels, namely either de- centralization, or deconcentration of services: 1) decentralization between the national and the regional levels and, wherever possible, the principle of subsidiarity will be applied; 2) deconcentration of relations between the intermediate levels and the lower levels. While previous proposals proceed from historical or ethnical arguments, studies of regional boundaries, established on the ground of inter-sett lement relations, are much fewer, and they are authored by geographers (Săgeată, 2000, 2006; Ilieş and Wendt, 2012; Cocean, 2013), or economists (Otiman, 2013; Otiman et al., 2013). The fi ndings reported in the latest studies, in particular, are questionable insofar as the validity of ensuing territorial structures is concerned, and have already been com- mented in detail elsewhere (Săgeată, 2011a, 2011b). Besides, all these studies have preserved the current county boundaries, their authors proposing only various ways of amassing regional-type territorial units. Our study is among the fi rst that goes beyond this level, suggesting corrections of the dysfunctions existing in the present county system. 188 To this end, regional, department and underdepartment convergence, as well as the respective theoretical polarization centers have been identifi ed on the basis of the distances between these centers and the subordinated sett lements along the main routes of access. In this way, the bounds of urban infl uence zones, and implicitly of the polarized administrative structures, have been delineated (e.g., if subordinated sett lement X, situated between A and B polarizing centers, lies at 15 km from center A and at 16 km from B, it will fall into A polarization area; subordinated sett lement Y, situated between the same polarization centers, lying also at 16 km from center A and at 15 km from B, will be included in area B, between the two subordinated sett le- ments X and Y – transcending the boundary between the polarization area of A and B and implicitly of the administrative units established on their basis). Furthermore, polarization areas were hierarchically ranked by the functional rela- tions existing between polarizing centers. The outcome is the creation of administra- tive levels (e.g., if sett lement X is polarized by center A which, in its turn, is subordi- nated to B, which discharges territorial functions- regional metropole, then sett lement X is part of a county-type administrative structure (department) co-ordinated by cen- ter A, but included into a regional administrative unit co-ordinated by center B). 5.1. Methodology In order to establish the confi guration of the proposed administrative patt ern, three distinct stages had to be covered: 1. The identifi cation of regional and local converging centers capable of being vest- ed with an administrative function, by hierarchical levels, in terms of their polar- izing potential. Assessing the polarizing potential was based on three categories: demography, economy and localization, selected in the light of historical records and their present geographical position within the urban system. In this way, four samples have been outlined (C 1 – C 4) (Table 2 and Figure 1): 2. Polarizing areas of selected urban centers were established based on the travel- ling distance between them and the adjacent sett lements. When inter-sett lement distances could be covered by several routes (motorway, highway and railway), the bett er ones have been taken into consideration, having in view natural favor- able and restrictive factors (relief patt ern and water network). Depending on the distance to the polarizing urban cores, the polarizing adminis- trative units have been grouped into several categories: Administrative units situated in the immediate vicinity of the polarizing urban center (less than 10 km away), most of them being former suburban communes; Strongly polarized administrative units (less than 25 km from the polarizing urban centers), their polarizing degree depend- ing on the polarization potential; Moderately polarized administrative units (between 25 and 50 km from the polarizing center) include rural sett lements and small towns, secondary local polarizing cores also emerging from this category; Poorly-polarized 189 Table 2: Regional converging centers suitable to being vested with a political-administrative function (C 1 – C 4) City samples City names Observations C 1 : Former county- seats (1960-1968) Bacău, Baia Mare, Braşov, Bucureşti, Constanţa, Craiova, Cluj-Napoca, Galaţi, Deva, Iaşi, Oradea, Piteşti, Ploieşti, Suceava, Târgu Mureş, Timişoara. This category of urban centers continued to be fi rst-rank administrative centers throughout the 20th century C 2 : Current residential seats Alba Iulia, Arad, Alexandria, Bistriţa, Botoşani, Brăila, Buzău, Călăraşi, Focşani, Giurgiu, Miercurea Ciuc, Piatra Neamţ, Reşiţa, Râmnicu Vâlcea, Satu Mare, Sibiu, Sfântu Gheorghe, Slobozia, Slatina, Târgovişte, Târgu Jiu, Drobeta - Turnu Severin, Tulcea, Vaslui, Zalău All these towns lost the regional or department administrative center status, with negative consequences for their socio-economic development C 3 : Former underdepartment seats (1925-1950) Bârlad, Blaj, Caracal, Câmpulung, Câmpulung Moldovenesc, Dej, Dorohoi, Făgăraş, Fălticeni, Huşi, Lugoj, Odorheiu Secuiesc, Roman, Rădăuţi, Râmnicu Sărat, Sighişoara, Sighetu Marmaţiei, Turda, Tecuci, Turnu Măgurele For most of them, the result was stagnation, even regression, despite of rehabilitation attempts to assign them municipality status and/or preferential industrial investments, which actually imbalanced the respective towns C 4 : Potential administrative centers are local polarization towns suitable to gaining local administrative center status1 Brad, Calafat, Caransebeş, Carei, Câmpina, Cugir, Curtea de Argeş, Drăgăşani, Feteşti, Hunedoara, Medgidia, Mediaş, Olteniţa, Oneşti, Paşcani, Petroşani, Reghin, Roşiori de Vede, Sulina, Târnăveni, Urziceni, Vatra Dornei These are generally urban centers with more than 30 000 inh. which, with a few exceptions, became municipalities after 1990 due to their location potential (in depressions, deeply rural, or hardly accessible areas – Sulina, Calafat, Brad, Vatra Dornei, Urziceni, etc.). 1 Urban centers with a restrictive location potential (Mangalia, Câmpia Turzii, Aiud, Orăştie, Năvodari, and Mioveni), situated close to regional or local polarizing centers have been eliminated from this category. Figure 1: Regional converging centers suitable to being invested with political-administrative function (C 1 – C 4) and their inter-relations C 1 – County-seats between 1950 and 1968; C 2 – Current residential-seats, gaining or regaining this status after the 1968 administrative reorganization; C 3 – Underdepartment seats between 1925 and 1950 not regaining this status afterwards; C 4 – Potential administrative centers, local polarization towns suitable to gaining underdepartment administrative center status, 1. Subordination, 1 a. Diffuse subordination, 2. Competition. 190 administrative units (more than 50 km from a polarizing urban core), defi ne deeply rural areas with diff use polarization (Figure 2) (Săgeată, 2004b). Figure 2: Diffuse urban polarization areas versus potential administrative centers In order to assess the infl uence areas of potential administrative centers, the road-dis- tance model has been correlated with accessibility to the railway network (Figure 3). Figure 3: Administrative-territorial units with free access to the railway network 191 Since some towns, selected as potential administrative centers, are situated at the periphery of the current counties (especially those in samples C 3 and C 4), their in- fl uence areas transcends the limits of current administrative structures. Besides, the percentage of intra-county and inter-county polarizing cores is sensibly equal. 3. The quantifi cation of existing relations between urban centers considered viable for being vested with administrative function (samples C 1 – C 4). Three types of relations have been distinguished, namely, subordination, competi- tion and indiff erence, whereby the resulted territorial structures, based on polarizing areas, have been hierarchically organized by administrative levels. Thus, subordina- tion relations at the level of the urban centers determined integration relations at the level of the polarizing territorial structures, which, in turn, generated administrative department and local levels; competition and indiff erence relations produced frag- mentation relations that outlined the limits among regional administrative structures. 5.2. Results and discussions On the basis of historical regions formed in the course of time as homogeneous functional and mentally-perceived spaces, and proceeding from the relationships es- tablished at the level of regional sett lement systems, as well as from the road dis- tance between communal centers and the local polarizing cores, a number of eleven macro-territorial structures, considered viable to have regional administrative status, have been distinguished. The administrative structures, relying on regional converg- ing polarizing cores and the relations among them, could be named after the histori- cal provinces they are located in: Bucovina (Northern Moldavia), sustained by co-oper- ation between the towns of Botoşani and Suceava; Central Moldavia between Iaşi and Bacău; the Lower Danube centered on the Galaţi-Brăila conurbation; Dobrogea on Con- stanţa; Muntenia on Bucharest; Oltenia on Craiova; Banat, primarily on Timişoara and secondarily on Arad; Maramureş, relying on the co-operation between Baia Mare and Satu Mare; Transylvania, including Crişana, centered on Cluj-Napoca; South-Eastern Transylvania, based on the co-operation between Braşov and Sibiu (Figure 4). Regions are formed of counties, themselves delimited by zones of infl uence polar- ized by regional centers given county-seat status. At a lower level, counties include smaller units of the so-called plase type, corresponding to the infl uence zones of major towns subordinated to county-seats; at the base-level, counties consist of the pres- ent-day communes. Changing inter-communal boundaries could be done in a second phase of admin- istrative reform and only at the proposal, or with the agreement, of the respective local communities. Since both the local level (commune) and the number of existing counties, and therefore of seats, are being maintained, implementing the model proposed by us does not imply great costs, because no new locations for mayoralties, prefectures, etc. are necessary. What is important is the clear-cut delimitation of the tasks, devolving on the regional authorities, from those assigned to county and local authorities. 192 The main advantage of our model is its functional capacity in the territory, given that distances between administrative centers and subordinated sett lements are being optimized, which is an essential prerequisite for a more effi cient administration. The map in Figure 10 is the only administrative-territorial outline of Romania achieved by measuring all rail-and-road distances between administrative centers and subor- dinated sett lements, established by hierarchical levels in terms of subordination rela- tions in the national sett lement system. That is why, this proposal is fundamentally diff erent from other proposals based either on political affi nities, or on a desire to re-establish the former territorial structures, but without adequately assessing the changes occurred in the Romanian urban system over the last fi fty years. A fi rst step to inform decision-makers on the advantages of this empiric model was the publication of a comprehensive synthesis study (Romania’s administrative-ter- ritorial organization. Evolutions. Optimization proposals) on the Internet site of the Minis- try of Regional Development and Public Administration, in which a critical-objective analysis is made of the advantages and disadvantages of each model of Romania’s administrative-territorial reorganization proposed after 1990. 6. Conclusions Having in view previous experiences both in Europe and Romania, as well as the current features of the country’s urban system, the present work advances a new Figure 4: Proposed administrative-territorial reorganization based on relationships established among regional settlements 193 three-level administrative-territorial hierarchy, by region, department (Rom. county) and underdepartment (Rom. plasă) based on polarizing cities, themselves arranged hierarchically by levels and infl uence zones. This is one of the fi rst scientifi c studies in Romania which goes beyond the aggre- gation of present-day counties into regional units, arguing the delimitation of new territorial-functional structures so as to bring administrative institutions closer to the citizens’ needs. 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