Premises for Shaping Metropolitan Areas in Romania

The setting up of metropolitan areas is a process which is still in progress in Romania. The legislative framework for the creation of these areas has been built up only since 2001, and there are still a number of juridical inconsistencies concerning the association of administrative units to form metropolitan areas. On the other hand, political reasons and the fear of losing a certain degree of authority and to become subordinates of the large cities (in the case of rural municipalities) also hindered the development of metropolitan areas in Romania. Nevertheless, the metropolitan areas already in existence are running a number of projects that are beneficial for most members of the association. Such positive examples may trigger the creation of the other metropolitan areas. Although the existing metropolitan areas did not yield spectacular results, the time passed since their foundation is yet too short to correctly assess their usefulness and territorial meaning. For the moment, the following metropolitan areas exist in Romania: Ia i, Oradea, Bra ov, Constan a, Bac u, Cluj-Napoca, Targu Mure and Craiova. Bucharest, Timi oara, Ploie ti and Gala i-Br ila metropolitan areas are still in process of setting up.