Abstract
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UPDATED VERSION:
Keywords: regional development, local government, joined-up government, administrative and financial decentralization, development indicators;
This paper is a follow-up of the research begun last year - "Building a metropolitan area model for the Romanian administrative space" - focusing this time on the regional implications that the emergence of new administrative structures - metropolitan areas - can lead to, in building a regional development model that can be applied in the Romanian administrative space.
The paper suggests a number of conclusions regarding the economic implications, from a number of existing models of development, focusing on theories of localization (model von Thunen, Weber model), interdependence localization (Hotelling model) and the theory of central places (Model of Christaller, Losch, Zipf).
Based on these economic theories and the implications of metropolitan areas on the regional development process, the paper aims to develop a set of indicators to identify and measure the intensity and quality of migration - a result of the emergence and development of the filtering phenomenon from the metropolitan areas to the peripheral areas and the extent to which this phenomenon contributes to reducing regional disparities.
Special attention will be given to local government, through a direct relating to the coordination process and to the identification and the possibility of applying the concept of joined-up government at the level of metropolitan areas.
From this regard, the concept of decentralization will be presented, the author going to ascertain that financial decentralization should stop at the metropolitan area level and be aimed, on the basis of the principle of specialization (one of the establishing principles of metropolitan areas), especially at the areas of responsibility delegated to exercise by the local governments, this set of core competencies representing the area of implementation of the concept of joined-up government.
The applicability of the joined-up government concept can be seen as a first measure that the administrative system can generate and implement, through a comprehensive process aimed at rethinking the operation and the organization of the administrative structures. Delegation of powers, at the level of specific organisms, can be interpreted, as an anti-crisis measures.
The role of those organisms is to coordinate the implementation process of the anti-crisis policies throughout the entire region, contributing to the coherence and the effectiveness of these policies.
From the perspective of this paper, metropolitan areas should act as a middle government, representing the place of convergence for the decentralization process and joined-up government process.
The entire analysis will focus on the Romanian development regions, the set of indicators developed having, initially, a general nature that can subsequently be adapted to the regional-metropolitan specificity.
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