Implementation Of New Spatial Tools For Integrated Urban Development Plans In Small And Medium Cities

This paper describes the need and importance of new spatial tools for integrated urban development plans or local developing strategies in small and medium cities based on public information. Due to complexity analyses and the high amount of data available at the public authorities’ level, a prior selection and classification of relevant data needs to be carried out, in order to respect processing requirements of spatial tools. In current situations identified in the field of local administration structures from Romania, the relevant data is sometimes misinterpreted or, in some cases, unused if based on unilateral decisions and spatial invalidations. Furthermore, different sources of information, such as urban growth estimation data, need to be integrated in a spatial manner according to theoretical and practical estimations. In order to exemplify benefits for integrated urban development plans or developing strategies, spatial tools were used in order to counteract the weak institutional capacity in the process of designing and validating local developing strategies.