Relations between Urbanization and Industrialization in Hunedoara

Georgiana BOSIOC1, Ana M. DRĂGOI1
1 Babeş-Bolyai University, Faculty of Geography, Cluj-Napoca, ROMANIA
E-mail: bosioc.georgiana@yahoo.com, dragoi_ana_monica@yahoo.com
Pages: 27-34

Abstract. Urbanization, as an effect of forced industrialization during socialism, characterizes industrial cities in Romania, most of them evolving through the industrial activities that gave a certain structure and function, which also determined an urban crisis as a result of the industry restructure, and redefining the role that industry have had in the national economy during transition. Hunedoara city, a mono-industrial city by excellence, evolved a little bit different from most of the country’s industrial cities, meaning that, when the urban systematization process began, this city had already a certain industrial tradition and a high urban development. Therefore, we can correlate the evolution of the industrial platform with the gradually urban growth. “The explosion” in Hunedoara, between 1956 and 1977, dictated the actual model of functional and spatial organization, during these times the population had a growth rate of 116.2%, and the built space expanded 60%. Even today, industry, through restructuring, dictates a new process for reorganization of the urban space, geo-demographical and social movement. This article analyses those processes determined by industry both in socialist systematization period and the restructure period after 1990.

K e y w o r d s: industrialization, urbanization, industrial site, industrial restructure, functional reintegration