Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized i ii This report was prepared by a core team comprised of Marcel Ionescu-Heroiu, Marina Neagu, Sebastian Burduja, Dumitru Sandu, Ciprian Moldovan, Titus Man, and Raularian Rusu. The report benefited from thoughtful comments by peer reviewers Guido Licciardi, Toshiaki Keicho, and Ramona Bere. The team would like to thank the counterparts in the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration, for the timely feed-back, the support offered in the elaboration of this study, and the excellent collaboration throughout. We would also like to extend our gratitude to the growth pole coordinators for the feed-back provided, and the regional development agencies for assisting with field visits and data collection. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views and position of the Executive Directors of the World Bank, the European Union, or the Government of Romania. December 20th, 2013 i Table of Contents List of Figures .................................................................................................... iv List of Tables ..................................................................................................... vi Executive Summary ......................................................................................... vii Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 PART I – Setting Out the Context ....................................................................... 2 The First Growth Poles Policy ............................................................................. 2 Policy Impact – Are Growth Poles Really Growing? ........................................... 6 A New Urban Systems Approach for Romania ................................................. 10 The EC’s Perspective and Policies on Urban Growth Poles ............................... 14 Framing the Growth Poles Policy within the framework of the Europe 2020 Strategy ............................................................................................................. 15 Approaches to Regional Development ............................................................. 16 EU definitions of cities and surrounding areas ................................................. 18 The Challenge of Institutional Frameworks ...................................................... 25 Correlation with Other Sectoral and Spatial Policies ........................................ 34 Should the Growth Poles Policy be Continued ................................................. 41 PART II – Recommendations for the Growth Poles Policy for the 2014-2020 Programming Period ........................................................................................ 43 A different kind of balancing act ....................................................................... 44 From regions and cities to people .................................................................... 49 More meaningful growth pole functional areas ............................................... 52 Not all growth poles are created equal ............................................................ 57 From Growth Poles to Growth Areas ................................................................ 62 Truly integrated programs ................................................................................ 64 Increase synergies with economic development policies ................................. 65 How many growth poles for the 2014-2020 Programming Period? ................. 67 Learning from the București Growth Pole ........................................................ 76 Making București a growth pole? ..................................................................... 78 What type of growth pole investments for 2014-2020? .................................. 79 Proper monitoring and evaluation of the Growth Poles Policy ........................ 81 Designing sustainable institutional frameworks for growth pole governance . 85 Alternative institutional solutions to IDAs ........................................................ 87 PART III - Recommendations for individual growth poles ................................ 89 Braşov ............................................................................................................. 101 Regional Infrastructure ............................................................................... 101 Business Environment ................................................................................. 104 Spatial Planning........................................................................................... 113 Cluj-Napoca ..................................................................................................... 119 Regional Infrastructure ............................................................................... 119 ii Business Environment ................................................................................. 122 Spatial Planning........................................................................................... 131 Constanţa ........................................................................................................ 135 Regional Infrastructure ............................................................................... 135 Business Environment ................................................................................. 138 Spatial Planning........................................................................................... 145 Craiova ............................................................................................................ 149 Regional Infrastructure ............................................................................... 149 Business Environment ................................................................................. 151 Spatial Planning........................................................................................... 158 Iaşi ................................................................................................................... 161 Regional Infrastructure ............................................................................... 161 Business Environment ................................................................................. 164 Spatial Planning........................................................................................... 171 Ploieşti ............................................................................................................ 175 Regional Infrastructure ............................................................................... 175 Business Environment ................................................................................. 178 Spatial Planning........................................................................................... 184 Timişoara ........................................................................................................ 189 Regional Infrastructure ............................................................................... 189 Business Environment ................................................................................. 192 Spatial Planning........................................................................................... 198 Annexes ......................................................................................................... 203 Annex 1 - Evolution of demographic size ........................................................ 203 Annex 2 - Evolution of built up areas .............................................................. 207 Annex 3 - Attributions of the growth pole coordinator .................................. 210 Annex 4 - Situation of IDP projects in implementation with funds from ROP (as of Feb. 2013) ................................................................................................... 211 Annex 5 - Methodology for calculating the connectivity index (RD) .............. 212 Annex 6 – Driving access areas by locality for each individual growth pole ... 214 Annex 7 – The Local Human Development Index (LHDI) methodology ......... 222 References ..................................................................................................... 224 iii List of Figures Figure 1. Growth Poles and Urban Development ................................................... 5 Figure 2. Evolution of firm revenues in growth pole areas ..................................... 8 Figure 3. How to define a city (Graz) and a commuting zone (Genova) ............... 19 Figure 4.Degree of polycentricity in national urban systems ................................ 20 Figure 5.MEGA typology and the core “pentagon” growth area .......................... 21 Figure 6.PUSH areas (left) and PIAs (right) ............................................................ 22 Figure 7.Share of growth in total GDP (%), 2000-2007 ......................................... 24 Figure 8. Governance structure of growth poles .................................................. 28 Figure 9.Potential functional areas are larger than the currently defined metropolitan areas ................................................................................................ 53 Figure 10. Population within a one hour train ride to growth poles ..................... 55 Figure 11. At this