Sustainable Development Focused on Reducing Regional Inequalities. Romania Progression as Emergent Economy

Abstract

Decrease of regional disparities is one of the main goal for every single or mixed economy, such as national regions within Europe or European Union as a whole. Disparities occurrence are differently set up from one territory to another, however emergent economies are characterized by a higher degree of regional inequality, being revealed as vulnerable once the European integration process begun, bearing in mind that living standard conditions seems not to be always as expected. Thus, the spatial analysis and territorial planning are major interest fields, in dealing with the problem of disparities, due to heterogeneous nature of the regions, based on the specific community-related problems. The present article aims to bring an updated statement of Romania’s regional disparities, using different methods and techniques, being able to perform rankings based on economic competitiveness, to analyze the main causes that significantly impact territorial unbalanced development and to release some useful advices that should avoid economic growth around few clusters, which may lead to a higher exposure to economic cycles.