The Influence of Urban Processes on the Community Spirit in the Municipality of Craiova

The present article results from the data processing of a study carried out in July 2023 in the Municipality of Craiova, the largest city in the Oltenia region. The study was scheduled as a stage in the preparation of a new General Urban Plan where the population consultation stage has the role of providing the local mayors with a set of information necessary for prioritizing the city’s problems from the point of view of the population’s expectations. The most appropriate research method was the sociological survey, through which opinions were collected by questioning 732 inhabitants on topics related to the degree of coverage of urban functions specific to a modern urban community, how they appreciate modern urban processes and comparative influences. The main problem that is at the basis of such a study is that of harmonizing technical approaches, originating from fields of activity that assume knowledge from the field of exact sciences (architecture, engineering) and approaches that assume a background from the field of social sciences (sociology, anthropology, psychology). To a large extent, Romanian urban and rural communities have benefited from development programs segmented according to financing flows, prioritizing investments in favor of material ones, against the background of indifference to the preferences and expectations of the population. The aim of this research was to mitigate the distance between institutional and community strategies with the aim of integrating community spirit into local development policies. The analysis carried out proved that investments in the development of the city increased the degree of appreciation of the population and fueled value principles that lead to the overvaluation of some areas and the disinvestment of other areas, ignoring some synthetic indicators that contribute to the formation of realistic opinions.