Urban Sprawl from a Comparative Perspective: The case of US Cities Versus Their Romanian Counterparts. Is There Any Reason Why We Should Worry? (I)

Abstract

In this article we tried to demonstrate that the organizational leadership problems are very well connected to the organizational culture ones. Organizational culture can help to the clarification of many phenomenons that appear in the organizations, can operate as brake or incentive for organizational effectiveness and the leadership play the main role in the creation and the development of organizational culture.  The paper concerns itself with creating a theoretical framework for understanding sprawl within Romanian cities. It has a twofold structure: in the first part the emphasis is on identifying some indicators that best describe this phenomenon. Some key features referred to by American scholars when describing sprawl in the US are reviewed and analyzed. Special consideration is paid to the Romanian context that greatly differs from the American one. Also, this section focuses on possible causes that account for the current pattem of sprawl in Romania. In the second part of the paper some arguments are brought in order to support the idea that sprawl is becoming a serious problem that Romanian urban planners will have to deal with in the near future. Though sprawl may be seen as an indicator for economic growth- this further implies that sprawl has positive aspects, one should not forget the environmental and the aesthetic concerns regarding suburban development. Because cities are expanding at a very rapid pace nowadays, it is necessaly for the decision-makers to understand what the pros and the cons for urban sprawl are; also some of its pervasive effects that may not be obvious many years from now need to be more in depth documented.