The Sustainable Local Development in Romania - Key Issues for Heritage Sector

Abstract

The increasing interest for local development came amid global economical, social and political changes. The globalization and the international economic crisis, the increasing phenomenon of relocation of businesses, internal structures of large industrial groups, and institutionalizing local autonomy as a European principle made the discussions about local development to be the subject of interest to the academic world, but especially for policy makers. For Romanian public policy, the sustainable local development became a strategically tool to sustain the heritage sector (public and private) and constitutes the goals of national strategies on social and economical development. Our paper aim is to reveal the level of Romanian sustainable local development in the context of European principles applied and to analyze the impact at the local communities as an important means of valuing regional and local heritage. This vision of the community about its future development should be shared with all relevant actors at local and translated into a set of specific objectives and a clear action plan to provide good governance. The paper includes some explorative conceptual aspect focused on theoretical and practical analysis of sustainable local development, using the empirical data provided by the strategic documents and by Euro stat in order to respond to the following aspects: to highlight the scientific literature concerning the sustainable local development; to analyze the legal requirements (European and Romanian rules) of local development and heritage in Romania; to analyze from economical point of view the impact of local development and the implications on the local and regional heritage.