The Annals of Valahia University of Trgovite, Geographical Series, Tome 10 / 2010

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TERRITORIAL CONCENTRATION OF THE POOR PEOPLE

IN THE PETROANI DEPRESSION
Andra COSTACHE1
1

Valahia University of Trgovite

Abstract: The paper analyses the features of the deprived urban areas from Petroani Depression,
characterized by the residential concentration of the poor people, but also by poor living conditions,
households with limited access to utilities and low acces to urban services. These areas have been
identified following field surveys applied in the six towns of the studied region.
Key words: Petroani Depression, poverty, deprived urban areas

1. Dimensions of poverty in the Petroani Depression.

In the Petroani Depression, the level of poverty is a direct consequence of the
regions evolution in the last 50 years and of the economic restructuring. These factors have
had an impact on the structure of active and inactive population and influenced the income
sources and the income level, which are the main prerequisites of poverty.
Compared to the national average for urban areas, in the cities of Petroani
Depression the income from wages, from self-employed activities or from goods saling (other
than agricultural products) have a lower weight.
On the other hand, there are higher than the national urban averages the value of
social transfers and the amount of services that are covered by certain discounts provided by
employers (in this case the National Pit Coal Company) Table 1. This reflects the
dependence of incomes on the welfare system and on the coal-extracting activities (the
revenues of 14.3% of households rely solely on wages, social benefits or social transfers from
CNH - Negulescu et al., 2004).
Table 1 Structure of the total household income
Type of revenues

Petroani Depression
urban (%)

Cash income
Wages, allowances, bonuses
Self-employed activities, sale of goods other than agricultural products
Sales of agricultural products
Revenues provided by the welfare system
- Pensions
- Unemployment benefit, support allowance
- Other social transfers
In kind income
The amount of free or discounted services, provided by the employer
(NPC)
The value of agricultural products produced by the private households
for own use

78.8
37.2
1.3
0.4
36.6
22.9
2.0
11.6
21.2
17.1

Romnia
urban
(%)
85.3
57.3
4.6
0.6
18.8
14.6
1.1
3.1
14.7
0.7

4.1

14
(Stnculescu, 2004)

The structure of inactive population and of the workforce, as well as the ratio
between the two categories show a discrepancy between the number of people dependents or

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benefiting from social transfers and the number of those who receive a wage. In the Petroani
Depression, the total activity rate is of 36.6% and the overall employment rate has an average
of 28.7%, below the national urban averages (44.4% and 40.1%). The economic dependency
ratio is of 2.48 inactive and unemployed people/ employed person.
Among the inactive population, the housewives own a significant share (14.6%,
nearly three times the amount recorded in urban areas at national level fig. 1). The towns
Uricani, Lupeni and Aninoasa are characterized by a critical situation in terms of economic
dependence, which is correlated with the high values of poverty rate.

Pupils,
students

%
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

Housewives
Pensioners
DPurban

Vulcan

Petrila

Petroani

Others

Fig. 1. The structure of inactive population (Data source: Stnculescu, 2004)

According to the World Bank (Stnculescu, 2004), about 28 000 people from the
Petroani Depression live in poverty and the average poverty rate (19.43%) is closer to the
Romanias urban average (17.63%). For the individual settlements, the study emphasizes
values of the poverty rate lower than national averages for the cities whith the same
demographic size (fig. 2). Still, the actual dimensions of the phenomenon in the region are
revealed by the food poverty rate and the rate of extreme poverty, which have values of 2.35,
respectively 1.93 times higher than the national urban average. Thus, 6.31% of the Petroani
Depressions residents are living on the edge of survival, their revenues barely covering the
food needs (food poverty). The extreme poverty rate (percentage of people who can cover
food needs but not the non-food ones) is of 10.38%.
In the cities of the region, poverty is much deeper in some cases, e.g. at Uricani the
food poverty rate exceeds 4.1 times the average for Romanian cities of comparable size, and
the extreme poverty rate is two times higher than this average. A difficult situation
characterizes the town of Aninoasa, where the poverty rates are 1.3-1.8 times higher than the
average calculated for the Romanian cities with more than 10,000 inhabitants.
The poverty rate is correlated with the unemployment, the lack of education or the
lack of professional qualifications, but also with ethnicity. According to the above mentioned
study, the most affected by poverty are the single parent families (in which women, widowed
or divorced, are the head of the family), the large families (whose family head, usually a
Roma ethnic, received a poor education and had no job) and families whose income are based
on social transfers (8% of households, most of them below the food poverty line) and on
different types of pensions.
The local peasants (momrlani) are less exposed to poverty than the immigrated
workers and their families, as the agricultural products can cover consumption needs and they
can represent even income sources when sold on the local market.

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Fig. 2. The poverty rate in the towns of the Petroani Depression (%)
(Data source: Stnculescu, 2004)

The recovery from the state of extreme poverty is a difficult process that exceeds in
most cases the financial resources of the affected people. The solutions adopted by those who
lose their jobs or have not had a stable job are less effective and do not provide long term
income security. The most frequent coping mechanisms are: seeking the support of the local
authorities; borrowing money from friends or relatives; finding a temporary job, without an
official labor contract (e.g. day-labourers in agriculture and construction); gaining money
from the sale of scrap metals or harvesting and selling berries, mushrooms and medicinal
herbs. Migration for employment abroad was also a coping mechanism in the context of
revenue loss, but it was efficient only for those affected by poverty that had a certain level of
expertise and which were benefiting from the support of family and friends.
2. Territorial concentration of the poor people in the Depression Petroani
As in other urban areas, in the cities of the Petroani Depression there are several
areas characterized by the residential concentration of the poor people (fig. 3). These are
mainly the neighborhoods inhabited by the mine workers (colonii - colonies), which are
located on the outskirts of towns or in their historical center. The inhabitants of these
residential areas (districts or parts of neighborhoods), are people with a similar educational
and professional profile, that have been severely affected by the economic restructuring and
by the changes of the labor market. The formation of poor urban areas following the
deprivation of residents and the out-migration of those with a higher mobility is a commonly
found process in the industrialized regions of Romania.
The urban areas inhabited by the poor people are characterized by damaged houses
and apartment blocks (because of their age, of abandonment or lack of maintenance), limited
access to utilities, housing overcrowding, squalid living conditions and, in some cases, a
specific atmosphere (caused by the presence of people "on the street"), which creates a feeling
of lack of orders and insecurity (the appearance is not confirmed by the behavior of the
inhabitants).
In the city of Petroani, among residential areas with a high concentration of poor
people there are the following neighborhoods: the neighborhood Colonie, located on the left

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side of Jiu de Est river, between the river and the national road Petroani-Tg. Jiu; Bosnia (a
residential area of mine workers, located on the left side of the road Petroani-Petrila); some
parts of the district known as Aeroport (Airport), e.g. Venus Street, Saturn Street, and Saa.
Unlike other deprived areas mentioned above, Saa is not a workers' district; it has
developed as a group of small households, mostly poor and very crowded, inhabited by Roma
people (there are also some isolated traditional households). The access to Saa is difficult,
being ensured by an unmodernized road that branches of the national road on the right side of
the Jiul de Est river, upstream of the Livezeni bridge. The first group of households is located
approx. 1 km away from the national road.

Fig. 3. Deprived urban areas1 in the Petroani Depression:

Petroani: 1 Colonia, 2 Aviatorilor District, 3 Saa; Petrila: 4 - Lonea; Aninoasa: 5 - Colony
"Sus pe Vale", 6 - Colony "Centru II"; Vulcan: 7 Dallas District, 8 - Vulcan Colony; 9 Miners
colony from Crevedia Valley; Lupeni: 10 - tefan District, 11 - Colony from the historical center,; 12 "Vscoza" District; Uricani: 13 - "Oraul Vechi"

In the town of Lupeni, among the areas that are concentrating poor people are the old
town center, the tefan district and, partly, the district "Vscoza". The quarter "Vscoza" is
located right next to the factory Vscoza, now mostly decommissioned. The district includes
blocks of apartments with 2-3 floors, the oldest dating from the early 1950s; the deprived area
is extending to the old town center, including several blocks located along the ring road. In
1

The concepts of "deprivation" and "poverty" are frequently used as synonyms. However, according to the
distinction made by Townsend (1979, cited by Voicu, 2008), deprivation refers to the assessement of the
physical, social or environmental situation and to the lack of access to meet specified needs, while poverty is a
general state of lack of resources . The difference is the lack of control over resources (poverty) and the unmet
needs (deprivation). Identification of deprived urban areas has been achieved on the field, taking into account the
quality of housing, the households with limited access to modern facilities, the absence or inadequacy of
facilities or services in urban areas. In Petrosani Depression, the deprived urban areas are corresponding to the
areas of residential concentration of the poor people.

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the eastern part of the city, on the right side of the Jiu River, in the old center, there is another
deprived area, a sector of miners colony, with duplex houses. The houses are damaged, and
the population is represented mostly of Roma ethnics (e.g. Avram Iancu Street, Revoluiei
Street).

a.

b.

c.

Fig. 4. a. Houses in Saa, Petroani; b, c. Lupeni - neighborhood "Vscoza"

The tefan district, located on the left side of Jiul de Vest river is known for poor
living conditions and a high exposure to hazards caused by the mining activities (induced
subsidence and discharge of the lakes accumulated between the waste dumps).
In Petrila, the deprived areas have been identified among the colony type of
residential areas (e.g., on Republicii Street, on Progresului Street, on 22 Decembrie Street, or
in the district known as "Dallas"). The largest colony is Lonea, held out from Cimpa to the
confluence of Taia brook with the Jiul de Est River. The characteristics of deprived areas
occur mainly in a sector of apartment blocks on Muncii Street and in Lonea district, and more
subdued in the colony located on the interfluve Jie - Jiul de Est.
In Aninoasa, buildings or building complexes inhabited by mine workers are
encountered in the sector with traditional households located between Iscroni and Aninoasa
(near the mine), and in the city itself, in the upstream sector of Aninoasa valley. The most
extended deprived area is the colony "Sus pe vale", formed by duplex houses and single-level
apartment blocks, highly degraded, without sewerage and with a desolating aspect. The
narrowness of the Aninoasa valley imposed the elongated shape of the colony "Sus pe vale"
(basically a single row of blocks, located on the left side of the valley, on a street with a
length of approx. 1 km). Another large deprived area is located between Centru II Street and
the national road DN 66A Cmpu lui Neag-Petroani; the colony is composed of duplex
houses inhabited by Roma ethnics. Other deprived areas, much smaller, are the sectors of
colony such as those on the Progresului Street or the group of houses located on the right side
of Jiul de Vest River, between the industrial railway and the road Iscroni-Aninoasa.

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a.

b.

Fig. 5. Housing in two deprived areas of Aninoasa: a. Colony "Sus pe vale"

b. Colony Centru II

At Vulcan, the most important concentrations of the poor people are also the miners
colonies. Thus, on the right side of the Jiul de Vest River, the colony is composed of duplextype houses, and the inhabitans are mainly Roma ethnics. The position of the colony (between
the river and the railroad that serves the coal preparation facilities from Coroieti) enhances
the social exclusion and the spatial segregation. The district looks miserable, the houses are
degraded and they are located near the enclosure of coal processing facilities and the waste
dumps. A source of income for the population is the collection of waste coal along the railway
at the edge of the colony. So far, the only visible "intervention" of the local authorities is the
planning of a children's playground on a vacant lot at the edge of the colony.
The same features (poor housing conditions, duplex houses, the predominance of Roma
ethnics, spatial segregation) are found in the colony located on Crevedia valley, near the E.M.
Vulcan (Vulcan Mining Exploatation), between Vulcan and Dealu Babii (fig. 6a).

a.

b.

Fig. 6. Vulcan: a. A colony of houses in the Crevedia Valley; b. Renovation of an apartment block in
Dallas District (August 2008)

Another neighborhood that is characterized by the concentration of the poor people is

the micro-district 3B - "Dallas" (the name comes from the apartment blocks with 10 floors).
As in the case of the colony located near the coal processing facilities, the neighborhood
location, on the right side of the Jiul de Vest River, and the damaged access road are creating
the impression of isolation and marginalization. There are frequent cases of abandoned and
degraded apartments and deficient urban facilities (e.g. the apartment blocks on the Traian
Street, on Eminescu Street and on t. O. Iosif Street). In some cases, there were completed

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certain rehabilitation works (such as waterproofing) or even the total renovation of apatment
blocks, in the PHARE MAAR Project (fig. 6b).
In the town of Uricani, there are two main areas of concentration of the poor people,
The Old Town Oraul Vechi (on the left side of Jiul de Vest River e.g. on the 1
Decembrie 1918 Street, no. 1, 3, 5, 9 and 11; on the Aleea Jiului Street no. 1, 3; on Muncii
Street no. 11A, 13, 17; on Revoluiei Street no. 1-5) and The New Town - Oraul Nou on
the right side of Jiul de Vest River (e.g. Aleea Brazilor Street). In 2006, a few blocks from the
deprived area located in the Old Town (on 1 Decembrie 1918 Street) have been renovated
through a program funded by the Romanian Social Development Fund (the Social
Development Scheme for Mining Communities).
References
Costache, Andra, (2010), Vulnerabilitatea aezrilor umane i riscurile sociale n
Depresiunea Petroani: rezumatul tezei de doctorat, Valahia University Press,
Trgovite, 108 p.
Negulescu, Arabela Sena, coord., (2004), The Jiu Valley Region: multi-dimensional
assessment, Main Report, World Bank, 72 p., www.avj.ro
Stnculescu, Sofia Manuela, (2004), Poverty assessment, n Jiu Valley Region Development
Romania. Annex H: Livability, World Bank, p. 14-22, www.avj.ro
Voicu, B., (2008), Deprivare, in Zamfir, C., coord. Dicionar de srcie, ICCV,
http://www.iccv.ro/oldiccv/romana/dictionar/, accessed on 25.07.2008

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