Insertion of rural households into market economy mechanisms -evaluations and challenges on a zonal case study

The approach proposes itself, to identify the opportunities and restrictions for the rural development in a given rural area, made of four communes of the Arges County (situated in the Carpathian space), from a multicriterial perspective (demography, income sources, the utilized agricultural area, etc.), for the formulation of some feasible alternatives for the sustainable local development. Among the rural communities that gravitates towards it, we can mention the communes Albesti, Leresti, Schitu Golesti and Valea Mare Pravat (Valea Mare) that, together, constituted a rural microzone; from this area a representative sample of subjects was established; a complex questionnaire was applied to this sample, in relation to occupations and income sources, types of economic behaviors, etc., from the perspective of identification of opportunities for sustainable local development. The rural crisis was manifested in the investigated area by the multiplication of natural, demographic and social capital fragilization in each locality in part, added to a prolonged period of changes in the rural traditional values. The decline of farming activities specific to the investigated area, the economic decline of urban centers, the modification of the polarization center status of towns brought about essential changes in rural developments. The territorial image of the investigated area bears the imprint of agrarian structures specificity, generating particular modalities of space, natural and social capital utilization. The type of rural economy covers another dimension of the territorial image, as the modality of using the opportunities, the level of resources utilization and the economic coherence in particular are defining elements for the respective area.