WHAT PATTERN(S) FOR THE URBAN SPRAWL OF THE POST-SOCIALIST ROMANIAN CITIES?

International audienceThe urban sprawl has an important impact on the socioeconomic evolution of a city as well as on its environment. A defining characteristic of the western European capitalist city, the urban sprawl was not often observed in the urban areas of the Eastern Europe. However, it has become more and more relevant after the 90s because the transition to the post-socialist era determined an increasing development of the suburban areas of the cities from the ex-communist bloc. This paper studies the case of the post-socialist Romania, focusing on a couple of major cities, trying to underline the different types of urban sprawl that flourished after the fall of the communism, under inconsistent and ambiguous laws. The analysis will be a chronological one starting with the year 1990 and finishing with the year 2015. The period of time is restricted to the availability of the database that will be used, respectively, CORINE LAND COVER. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to identify the spatial and temporal patterns of the urban sprawl in the post-socialist Romanian cities, as well as to test methodologies and also the viability of the CORINE LAND COVER database for this type of analysis