| Abstrakt: |
The centralized planning of the economic development transposed in the territory through forced industrialization and urbanization policies was one of the most powerful transformative processes of the communist Romania space, triggering sudden changes in the traditional lifestyle of the inhabitants and causing territorial disturbances with long term effects. These policies have profiled a specific urban typology, represented by collective buildings with small surfaces, neighborhoods with high urban density, built in the close vicinity of the industrial centers. In most cases, the decision of selecting the rural settlements seen as "having high possibilities of development" to gain the urban status through forced industrialization, was conditioned by the presence of resources (especially the subsoil resources). The fall of the communist regime and the transition to market economy have initiated a metamorphosis of the Romanian urban spaces. Thus, with the disappearance of some industrial branches, imbalances shaped up at urban scale between the working-class neighborhoods lacking investments and the rest of the urban tissue. In the southern part of Bihor County the presence of mineral resources, especially uranium, subsequently represented both the chance of explosive development on the one hand, and the decline and total collapse of these communities, on the other hand. The changes brought by the uranium exploitation (the largest uranium deposit on the surface in the world) in the region were multiple and fast. The most important ones were related to the intake of manpower for whose accommodation there had been built new towns, like Dr. Petru Groza (currently Stei, built from scratch and attached to the namesake village) and Nucet (dormitory town for miners, also built from scratch). This study proposes to analyze the urban regeneration of Stei (named Dr. Petru Groza during the communist era after one of the most important Romanian communist leaders) in the context of current policies of urban development in Romania. The aim is to emphasize the need for urban regeneration measures in the industrial towns built during the communist regime, which are in a demographic, economic, social and derelict urban structures from the communist period, with outdated infrastructure, degraded built environment and an overall poor quality of the urban life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
