The Specificity of the Development of Local Economies from the Influence Area of the City Râmnicu Vâlcea
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The Annals of Valahia University of Târgovişte, Geographical Series, Tome 11 / 2011 __________________________________________________________________________________________________ THE SPECIFICITY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF LOCAL ECONOMIES FROM THE INFLUENCE AREA OF THE CITY RÂMNICU VÂLCEA Constantin Cristian DRĂGHICI 1, Daniel PEPTENATU1, Cristina MERCIU1, Loreta Andreea CERCLEUX 1, Daniel Radu PINTILII1, Ancuţa MUŞAT2 1University of Bucharest – The Interdisciplinary Centre for Advanced Researches on Territorial Dynamics (CICADIT), Bucharest, Romania. 2National Institute of Statistics, Bucharest, Romania Abstract. One of the most important problems of the contemporary society is represented by the elimination of discrepancies from the level of national territories, which appeared as a result of the unbalanced economic and social development. This can be accomplished only by a balanced and especially integrated development, a fact which will determine, in the end, the elimination of the disparities starting from national level and reaching even the local level. The situation is extremely complicated in case of an influence area, and this is the reason why we considered necessary an approach of the variation of development on a determined route: town – the limit of the influence area. In the present study, we aim at identifying the development level of localities from the influence area of the town Râmnicu Vâlcea, a consequence of the economic and social development which took place along the time. Key words: influence area, development level, developed areas, weakly developed areas 1. Introduction The unbalanced economic and social development which today’s society confronts with created, at territorial level, no matter we speak about national or local level, obvious discrepancies, which today represent important/ real obstacles in the balanced and especially integrated development of the human community. Starting from this observation, it becomes obvious that knowing the degree of a settlement’s development represents one of the primary elements in contouring and accomplishing those viable development strategies, able to farther ensure the increase considered from the economic and social point of view. In case of the influence area, the town becomes the central element, as by its polarising power it influences concretely the neighbouring area (Ungureanu, al., Ţurcănaşu, G. 2008). This is a big consumer of resources, and here we refer to raw material and agro- alimentary products, but also to work power, all these being ensured by the close adjacent space, a space which provides it these resources, in exchange of the superior services offered (Ianoş I., 1987, 2004). The towns regarded as centres of coordinating the subordinated surrounding space adapted their functions along time, taking into account the technological level and the economic necessities of this space (Bourdeau-Lepage, Huriot, 2003). Depending on its attraction power, the town will subordinate the surrounding space, directly influencing the functional complexity, the development of this space from the economic and social point of view being determined by the particularities of this influence (Mănescu, L. 1999; Negoescu, B. 1998; Peptenatu, D. et al 2010). Influence areas are spaces which overlap the administrative territorial units, having certain characteristics which differentiate them from the adjacent space by the economic activities, but also social-cultural elements, being strongly dependent of the polarising centre. Within the influence areas, there may appear some problems related to the fact that the management and coordination of these spaces must take into account the special characteristics of each administrative-territorial component unit, as the dis-functionalities which appear in these spaces could have multiple causes (Paula Valdés Foulkes, 2008). 109 The Annals of Valahia University of Târgovişte, Geographical Series, Tome 11 / 2011 __________________________________________________________________________________________________ In this context, the specificity of the local economies from the influence area is given by the economic particularities of each administrative-territorial component unit, and knowing these particularities has a special importance from the perspective of a future balanced economic development. The identifying of the development level of the localities thus becomes an important element in this demarche, facilitating decisions’ taking and even focalising the existent resources towards those local communities which need support for the future economic-social development. 2. Methods Identifying the development level of the areas represents a complicated action in case of the influence area of the city Râmnicu Vâlcea, due to the presence of the city county seat, which by its importance at regional and local level determines a much accentuated gap between its development degree and the territory under its direct influence. From this reason, we needed to take it out of our analysis and to focus only on the administrative units which are strictly in its influence area. Identifying these areas from the influence area of the city Râmnicu Vâlcea was done based on some specific criteria, so that their identifying should be as correct as possible. Thus, the main criteria which led to their identifying are as follows (Ianoş I. 2010): The indicators’ relevance (with an accent upon significance, and not on their number); The exact evaluation of the stage, based on the relevant indicators compared to the average at the level of the influence area of the city Râmnicu Vâlcea; Performing the analysis at the locality level, so that an adequate delimitation of the development areas could be done; The capacity of blockage of some territorial components upon the dynamic of social and economic life (restrictions regarding the development process); For the analysis carried on at the level of the influence area of the city Râmnicu Vâlcea it was used a system of indicators composed of four classes, which refer to the demographic and social dimension, the status of economic development and the level of life standard, for each locality situated in the influence area of the city Râmnicu Vâlcea. As a result, for the first class there were considered representative a series of 4 indicators, as: the weight of the population that attended high school and university, the population with a domicile, the weight of the persons aged 65 and over and the migration balance. For the second class, 3 indicators were taken into account: the long duration unemployment rate, the weight of the persons employed in agriculture and the employees from the industry. For the third class of indicators, there were taken into account for the analysis of the general state of infrastructure a number of 2 indicators represented by: the number of pharmacy units and the number of TV subscriptions per 1000 inhabitants. For the last class of indicators which reflect the differences within the life standard, there were taken into account the following indicators: the inhabitable surface/ inhabitant and the number of persons for one doctor. The main methodology applied for the analysis of the spaces from the influence area of the city Râmnicu Vâlcea allowed/ permitted the processing and analysis of elementary indicators. As the 11 indicators were expressed in different unit measures, it was necessary to standardize them in order to operate more easily, thus: for the commune X (Xsi), characteristic I, was obtained by the formula: IR – Im / IM – Im , where the real value for commune X the characteristic I is represented by IR, the maximum value of the characteristic I is IM, and Im represents the minimum value of the characteristic I. Thus, in the end, development index was calculated as a Hull score, with variations of these values between 0 and 100. In determining the value of this coefficient, it is important to appreciate the direct or opposite balance of each partial indicator with the development measuring, thus the indicators 110 The Annals of Valahia University of Târgovişte, Geographical Series, Tome 11 / 2011 __________________________________________________________________________________________________ that have a direct influence are considered positive, and those with opposite influence, are considered negative. 3. Results The identifying of the development degree of the localities from the influence area of the town Râmnicu Vâlcea imposed a detailed analysis of the 33 administrative territorial units from its structure, using a series of indicators which characterise the main social-economic field: the human capital, economic activities, the education level of the population and infrastructure. The ranking of the 33 localities from the influence area of the city Râmnicu Vâlcea, based on the coefficient of development, emphasized 5 classes of values under 50,61, between 50,62 and 51,59, between 51,60 and 52,28 between 52,29 and 54,40 and over 54,41. In case of the influence area of the city Rm. Vâlcea, we can identify 2 categories of localities, depending on the development level. A first category is represented by the localities which distinguish by higher values for several indicators and another category by a single characteristic placed under the average of the influence area. The transposing of these territorial intervals determined the identifying of several areas with different development levels. Thus, at the level of the influence area of the city Râmnicu Vâlcea