Rural degradation and development in Constanta County

Constanta County map 

Many authors in the fields of history and ethnology have stated over the course of time that the birth place of romanian identity is the traditional village. 

 We can notice that in many tourism spots that were promoted abroad , Romania's image is most of time related to the costumes , crafts and traditional believes that originate from the rural areas of the country.   

Even so , modernism said its word even in the most isolated rural area , it would be foolish to believe that the romanian village as we know it today still retains all of its cultural elements as it did in the early 1900's. 

 What is the most noticeable fact about the romanian rural environment is the huge contrast that it creates when compared to the urban centers of the country , many of us would think that this is a very common thing , there always will be significant differences between villages and cities in every country. 
  What we should take in to consideration is how big this differences are and the level of polarization that they create within the society .  
 If we analyse the situation in Constanta county we will come to some interesting conclusions  , in order to do a correct analysis of the current situation and to predict the future development of rural areas we must take in consideration a number of factors : 
1) local economy : configuration and development perspectives ,
 2) population structure on age groups 
 3) migration to big urban centers 
4) access to basic facilities (running water , sewerage  , electricity , roads ) 
5 ) proximity to a big urban center .
 Many villages from the county suffered a great economical depression after the fall of the communist regime , the majority of the not managing to develop a stable local economy.      Agriculture along with the raising of animals , wine production and fishing were the main economical activities identified with rural communities. 
 The economic depression was even harder because it was fueled with a number of other factors that produced a even greater identity crisis . If we take a look in the recent history of the county we can see a past that was marked by a demographic instability : depopulation of villages ,  population exchanges , migrations , etc .
  The biggest change in the county's population structure was made in 1940 when Romania and Bulgaria singed the Treaty of Craiova , the effect was a population exchange between the two states. Rural culture was very well  represented in Constanta county with a unique display of ethnic diversity , each community managing to keep there cultures alive until the present. Agriculture was practice all over the county as main or secondary activity , in areas close to the sea , lakes or the Danube , fishing had a very important role in the local economy.  The contrast in rural-urban development became more noticeable after '45 when the urban centers of the county started to be industrialized . 

Seimeni village , Constanta County 

The fact that the state controlled the economy and the economic policies we designed to neutralize social inequalities , made rural areas stable in that period , even so , the young population started to migrate to the big urban centers of the county . Having a culture that put a great accent of the nobility of agricultural labor with traditions (costumes , songs,rituals) dedicated to such aspects . 

 The postcommunist crisis put in to question the profitability of agriculture , many villagers not having the resources necessary to practice it on a medium or big scale , often it could only sustain a family . When we speak about rural degradation in Constanta county we have two distinct cases : villages that didn't manage to develop a stable local economy do their isolation and aged population and villages that managed to develop stable local economies - in this case we include villages close to urban centers or one who were or became tourist destinations. If we take a look at the map of the county we will notice a unequal distribution of big urban centers on the territory . 
 A big concentration of urban centers we can see on the Black Sea coast , being composed of ports(Constanta , Navodari and Mangalia)  and summer resorts  . The summer resorts from the Black Sea coast can't be classified as urban centers but villages close to them have a greater development opportunity . In the central part of the county the biggest urban center is the city of Medgidia and on the banks of the Danube : Cernavoda and Harsova .  

The little town of Negru Voda
-not far from the bulgarian border-

This also leaves many area of the county with no major urban centers that could fuel development , this situation is most noticeable in the south-west of the county and in the north.  Development in this areas is restricted by the bad infrastructure and poor access to a number of services .

  A portions of the county that struggles with extreme poverty in the Baneasa area in the south-west , the Negru Voda area and the north of the county. The recently developed rural areas that are close the urban centers experienced a chaotic development with neighborhoods appearing over night , most of the times this enlargements being done without a urban plan that would set some clear objectives . 

 One of the villages that so a huge expansion do to its proximity to Constanta (the county capital) was Lazu , doubling its size as a effect of the interest that many wealthy Constanta residents had in the area. 
 From a sociological point of view this very recently developed rural communities at the border with big urban centers are in a period of transition and identity redesign , from a rural identity based on group spirit and high demand for conformation to traditional norms to a urban identity based on individualism and a higher interest for personal goals.
 Isolated rural communities lean towards a cultural death , the costumes that had purely symbolic becoming extinct , surviving only those with a clear functional role. There is also a huge danger for a over polarization of society , with rural area becoming hot spots for poverty and domestic violence and also with entire area doomed to depopulation ,