The access to European funds, including projects and public agendas for
sustainable urban planning and growth, territorial cohesion, integrate landscape
planning, etc. was open during this period. For the peripheral dynamics as well
as for the entire planning process in Romania the “Europeanization” acted as
a ”vector of change not only for the national and regional administrations, but
also for a vast amount of local ones”.^20 The benefit can be found in several
urban plans and policies for new integrated and strategic approaches. It also
leads to an ”overwhelming amount of contradictory planning strategies and
instruments, and to the endurance of the exemption-driven planning practices
previously used by private developers”.^21
ConclusionsThe three decades of peripheral expansion of the Capital are equivalent to a
gradual process of maturation of urban planning at the national level. It is certain,
however, that during these three decades Bucharest attained the maximum of
area to be urbanized up to its administrative boundaries, because there is no
legal or operational agreement to cooperate with the surrounding territory.
We consider from an optimistic perspective that the driving forces of this
process are also changing - both the macro-economic factors, as well as the
local ones. They change the direction and act in order to increase the global
awareness about the dynamics of the peripheral expansion. The sustainability
paradigm is more than ever supporting against any interventions and the
new European documents insist on an increased attention and more efficient
actions against any forms of waste of urban environment and militate for an
ethical way of planning, which would not lead to excessive consumption of
urban resources.
Conversely, from a pessimistic perspective, we might see the future of urban
sprawl as a phenomenon of unconscious developed as before, aggravating
at all levels the problems of the city. The lack of attention to expansion,
especially when it comes amid a positive economic trend is still a trap for the
local governments in Romania. Still, for Bucharest, given the lack of rigor in
the assumption of consistent policies, and given some outdated mentality,
corruption and the rigidity in adopting the measures in accordance with the
European documents, there is a danger of continuing the unsustainable way
of expansion or even lead to the abandonment of these spaces, just by missing
any potential of them.
The development of information technologies is still far from being a solution
to the lack of control of the expansion. But however, the possibilities to map,
analyze information, to calculate accurately and simulate the spatial dynamics
of the city development in different macroeconomic scenarios, creates the
chance for future wiser policies. Precisely because of this point, Bucharest is
now at the beginning: the new General Urban Plan aims to be such a smart tool,
Angelica Stan