József Benedek

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Babeș-Bolyai University

Assessing land use/land cover changes currently represents an important avenue for achieving a better understanding of the urbanization phenomenon. Various free datasets based on satellite imagery are available, but the user should decide which one is the most suitable for their study area. The aim of the present paper is to perform an accuracy ass...

Land degradation (LD) threatens the food security and general welfare of many people globally. Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) is a pivotal goal within the global sustainability agenda, particularly under Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15.3.1, which measures the proportion of land that is degraded over total land area. Romania, with its diver...

Following the collapse of the communist regime, Romania underwent significant economic, territorial, and social transformations that exacerbated inequality. To help policymakers create effective economic strategies, it is necessary to pinpoint the areas with the largest disparities. Thus, using spatial statistics available in ArcGIS, the primary go...

This article asks if the measures of human capital, ethnic diversity, and gender equality from 1930 explain current levels of human capital in Romania while also assessing the role of macro-regional differences in the manifestation of historical legacies. We focus on human capital, measured by educational attainment and by conscientiousness, a pers...

This study examines sustainable development from the perspective of financial risks, focusing on measurement issues, like the spatial localization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). More exactly, the goal of the study is to present the European reception and implementation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United...

This paper offers an overview of the major processes and characteristics of the spatial planning system and practice in Romania. It is largely based on document analysis, proposing an evaluation of the major legislative documents regulating the field of spatial planning (the basic Law nr. 350 from 2001 for Spatial Planning and Urbanism, and additio...

The evolution of built areas is a widely debated subject mostly because their high dynamics and expansion can be related to the economic development. Technically, the availability of European datasets that include the built areas extracted from satellite imagery is an advantage that could be used for further research. The study aims to analyse the...

In 2015, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted by all United Nations Member States and includes a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The indicator, “Ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate” (indicator 11.3.1) was proposed for the monitoring of urban development. The present study proposes the analysis of the...

Measuring development is a long-standing challenge in the social sciences. Although multidimensional and multivariate approaches to development present several conceptual and/or methodological problems, some studies have pointed out that the unidimensional view of economic progress has failed on a large scale. The main purpose of our article is to...

Over the last two decades, Romania has undergone strong economic growth, catching up to advanced economies and producing one of the best economic performances in the world. Along with these positive changes, industrial product diversification has increased through expanded foreign economic relations, with all of these supporting the complexity of e...

The recent increase of regional inequalities in Europe, and in particular in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has led to the reconsideration and revival of the “growth pole” concept in academic fields like regional economics, economic geography and spatial planning. In contrast to the classical view developed by French economists, the new policy-le...

Urban sustainability relies on strategic documents such as the Urban Development Plans (UDPs). The major aim of this research is to use keyword matching to assess key sustainability terms in UDPs for Romanian urban areas. We found a low level of accessibility of the UDPs, with 11 counties (out of 42) having no available UDPs and 20% of the accessed...

The urban focus of the current Cohesion Policy aims to address challenges of what and how metropolitan governance and spatial planning can be synchronized. However, in various cases the territorial reality is that urban areas are beneficiaries of the cohesion policy funds while the adjacent rural communities become peripheralized. Therefore, the qu...

In order to measure progress in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, 169 targets have been approved globally. Even though interest in implementing these goals is high, many states have not yet established a set of subnational indicators to measure the implementation of the SDGs and have not completed their own assessment of p...

Az elmúlt évtizedekben az innovációkutatásnak fontos szerep jutott a helyi és regionális gazdasági fejlődés tényezőinek feltárásában. Ma az általánosan elfogadott tudományos kánon része, hogy az innováció különböző formái (technológiai, üzleti és társadalmi innováció) meghatározó szerepet játszanak a városok, régiók, országok gazdasági fejlődésében...

The chapter is about complexity reduction in spatial planning.

A tanulmányban a fenntartható fejlődés témakörével foglalkozunk, kiemelten területfejlesztési perspektívából, ugyanakkor mérési és módszertani kérdésekre is fókuszálva. A tanulmány célja bemutatni a fenntartható fejlődés fogalmának útját egy romantikus-derűs és naivnak tűnő metaforától – némileg meglepő módon – az európai kontinens meghatározó terü...

The aim of the paper is to develop a model for the real-time estimation of local level income data by combining machine learning, Earth Observation, and Geographic Information System. More exactly, we estimated the income per capita by help of a machine learning model for 46 cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants, based on the National Polar-orbi...

This paper critically analysis the definition of smart specialisation priority areas of Romanian less developed regions, aiming to identify weaknesses in policy design that according to existing theories characterise such regions. Besides an empirical contribution to the literature, findings also have a practical relevance. They can be used by regi...

This book represents an economic regional monography of Transylvania.

Erdély népességének gazdasági-társadalmi helyzetét meghatározó egyik legjelentősebb folyamat a regionális egyenlőtlenségek látványos és rövid idő alatt lezajló növekedése. Más szóval, az egyének, családok társadalmi esélyeit nagymértékben meghatározza az, hogy hol, melyik régióban, megyében élnek. Ebből a perspektívából a fejlődés erőteljes koncent...

Tanulmányunkban átfogó képet kívánunk adni a társadalmi igazságosság komplex kér-désköréről. Abból a feltevésből indulunk ki, hogy a társadalmi igazságosságról alkotott elképzeléseink meghatározzák a térbeli igazságosságról kialakított domináns értelmezéseket. Ennek tükrében a térbeli igazságosság új meghatározására teszünk kísérletet, John Rawls á...

Substantiation study on the definition and delineation of peri-urban areas in Cluj County, Romania.

Spatial planning

Currently, land cover changes occur in wood-pastures all over Europe driven by abandonment of traditional farming, as well as by management and policy changes. Based on reviewing of official documents, semi-structured interviews and one case study we examined how policies and governance settings for mountain wood-pastures have led to forest cover l...

Night-time lights satellite images provide a new opportunity to measure regional inequality in real-time by developing the Night Light Development Index (NLDI). The NLDI was extracted using the Gini coefficient approach based on population and night light spatial distribution in Romania. Night-time light data were calculated using a grid with a 0.1...

A földrajzi tér evolúciója és átalakulása során gyakran jelentkeznek kockázati helyzetek, illetve olyan jelenségek, amelyek károsan befolyásolják a társadalom állapotát. Ezeket a társadalom tudatos, szervezett közbelépéssel megszüntetheti vagy megelőzheti-és e folyamatban kiemelten fontos lehet a területfejlesztés szerepe. E kontextusban meg kell n...

The literature of industrial management has been focusing, although with different intensity, on the question of optimal company size since the 1960s. Whithin this framework the focus shifted since the 1980s form the examinations of, the effects of business outsourcing to increase efficiency to the organizational and economic connections of network...

Földrajzi tényezők szerepe a régiók gazdasági fejlődésében The main goal of the study is to reveal some aspects related to the role of geographical factors in economics. More exactly, we offer an overview on those geographical factors, which have some role in explaining the differences in the economic output of regions. In our view the important ex...

Az innováció földrajza Összefoglaló. Az elmúlt három évtizedben az innováció kérdése kiemelt figyelmet kapott a közgazdaságtani és gazdaságföldrajzi kutatásokban. Általánosan elfogadott tudományos álláspont szerint az innováció különböző formái (technológiai, üzleti, társadalmi innováció) meghatározó szerepet játszanak a városok, régiók, országok g...

The analysis of pedestrian–vehicle crashes makes a significant contribution to sustainable pedestrian safety. Existing research is based mainly on the statistical analysis of traffic crashes involving pedestrians and their causes, without the identification of areas vulnerable to traffic crashes that involve pedestrians. The main aim of this paper...

As part of a broader Europeanisation process, the general guidelines and principles of European spatial planning documents have been uncritically adopted in the Romanian spatial development system during the last two decades. One of them is related to the concept of polycentric development, translated in the Romanian planning system through the sel...

We offer in our study a spatial analysis of local income in Romania

A brief review of forest and agriculture policies in Romania addressing wood-pastures. Although the term "wood-pasture" has been used in forest legislation only after 1990, recommendations regarding the management of wood vegetation on pastures were introduced in forest and agriculture technical regulations during the communist period. Since then,...

Metropolitan areas became the breeding ground for economic, political, and cultural concentration as well as for creativity and innovation. Therefore, sustainability within the urban dimension plays a crucial role in the overall success to attain the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) and their targets under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Develo...

Economic history conducting investigations into financial crises of the long 20th century primarily analyses the permanent character of crises and their macroeconomic consequences. Statistics focuses, primarily, on the number of bank failures, corporate bankruptcies, low macroeconomic output (gross domestic product [GDP]), decreased employment rate...

The context and background of this study are based on the growing role of policy-driven renewable energy sources in improving energy security, protecting the climate, and encouraging economic development. In many cases, these high expectations are undermined by the lack of an integrated methodology for the measurement of renewable energy potential....

The main results of the study bring evidence for the peripheralization of rural areas situated in the second ring of the metropolitan area.

The aim of this paper is to identify the relationship between the spatial and temporal variation of spatial disparities (measured with Gross Domestic Product, GDP) and night-time lights at regional (county) level in Romania. The analysis presumed using night-time lights data captured by the DMSP-OLS satellites, in addition to official statistical d...

Public debates on the regional dimension of societal organisation are marked by a series of stereotypes originating from the lack of knowledge of this phenomenon. For this rea-son, this study combines the concepts of ho-mogeneity and heterogeneity with specific spatial structures (core-periphery structures) in the designation of development regions...

Az innováció vizsgálatának elméleti és gyakorlati kérdései: technológiai innovációtól társadalmi innovációig 4 Kivonat Az elmúlt három évtizedben az innováció kérdése kiemelt szerepet játszott a települések, régiók, or-szágok fejlődésének, versenyképességének magyarázatában. Tanulmányunkban áttekintést nyújtunk ezekről a fejleményekről. Kiemeljük a...

Certain features of imported second-hand cars (e.g., age, degree of wear and tear, technical design) can increase their likelihood for traffic crashes. Three official datasets which cover an eight year period (2008–2015) are used to test the connection between importation of second-hand cars and different types of traffic crashes. The traffic crash...

Differences in regional economic growth trajectories and the multiple regional effects of the economic crisis have revived studies dedicated to the subject of resilience. The main goal of this paper is to measure the resilience of the Romanian regions, seeking to answer two basic questions: What was the regional impact of the global crisis from 200...

The book contains the Integrated Urban Development Plan of the city Carei

The built-up area in many large cities has shown a continuous growth during the last decades. In the present study we aimed to evaluate the connection between Land Surface Temperature and built-up areas within the urban areas, based on statistical correlation. Experiments were performed in the surrounding area of Cluj-Napoca - one of the most dynam...

Renewable energy projects (REPs) are viewed as a resource for the development of rural, peripheral communities. Going beyond the simplistic understanding of renewable energy technology as an independent variable, the current study looks into what the interaction between renewables and host communities brings in terms of innovation and development....

The article explains processes of spatial polarisation in the Visegrad countries.

The study examines the spatial and economic characteristics of commuting to work in one of the most dynamic areas of Romania, Cluj County. Based on the 2011 census data, the study reveals a strong connection between accessibility and commuting intensity, while the urban network determines the spatial orientation of the dominant commuting flows. How...

1. Introduzione L'interesse professionale nello sviluppo regionale e me-tropolitano sta costantemente crescendo in Romania. Tale interesse cresce soprattutto per le esperienze della Romania come membro dell'UE e per le opportunità of-ferte dal prossimo periodo di programmazione. Questa ricerca analizzerà il ruolo giocato dalle aree me-tropolitane n...

Innovation is one of the determining factors of economic output. The actors of economics have long recognized that in regions where there is a lack of economic and natural science innovation, social innovation can be a compensating factor. This recent research presents a methodology for measuring social innovation potential (index) and defines a kn...

The main aim of our paper is to analyse the economic convergence and divergence processes in a broder transnational spatial context represented by the NUTS-3 regions of the Carpathian Basin. This macroregions comprises spatial units with different economic situation and prespective from the following countries and Ukraine. Our results clearly demon...

As part of a broader Europeanization process, the general guidelines and principles of the European spatial planning documents have been uncritically overtaken in the last two decades in the Romanian spatial planning system. One of them is represented by the growth pole concept, which was widely used not only in the selection process of the cities...

A folyóiratban megjelent tanulmányokat két független szakértő lektorálta és ajánlotta közlésre. XIII. évfolyam 1. szám www.strategiaifuzetek.hu Felelős kiadó: Szerkesztőség:

Területi polarizáció és periferializáció Romániában, székelyföldi perspektívából Közép-Kelet-Európa egyik legjelentősebb térbeli folyamata a gazdasági és társadalmi egyenlőtlenségek gyors növekedése és a fejlődés erőteljes kon-centrációja a fővárosi térségekben. A jelenség Romániát sem kerülte el, sőt, a Romániában kialakult regionális egyenlőtlens...

Romania has recorded a dramatic number of road traffic accidents in the last five years. The latest European documents and statistics indicate that the country has the highest number of traffic fatalities across the Member States of the European Union. The aim of the paper is twofold. First, the authors aim to analyze the spatial characteristics of...

The current increase of regional inequalities in Europe, and in particular in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has led to the reconsideration and revival of the concepts of “polarisation” and “convergence” in academic fields like regional economics, economic geography and spatial planning as well. In contrast to the classical view on these concepts...

Besides other non-behavioural factors, low-light conditions significantly influence the frequency of traffic accidents in an urban environment. This paper intends to identify the impact of low-light conditions on traffic accidents in the city of Cluj-Napoca, Romania. The dependence degree between light and the number of traffic accidents was analys...

The paper develops a methodology for the measurement of regional innovation potential

A folyóiratban megjelent tanulmányokat két független szakértő lektorálta és ajánlotta közlésre. XII. évfolyam 2. szám www.strategiaifuzetek.hu Felelős kiadó: Szerkesztőség:

Our paper focuses on the spatial differentiation of economic development in Romania. We use spatial econometric methods (spatial autocorrelation) in order to determine the differentiation of the country in core regions and peripheries. The analysis is carried out on the regional spatial scale (NUTS 3 units or counties) and covers the period 2000-20...

Besides other non-behavioural factors, the low lighting conditions significantly influence the frequency of the traffic accidents in the urban environment. This paper intends to identify the impact of low lighting conditions on the traffic accidents in the city of Cluj-Napoca. The dependence degree between lighting and the number of traffic acciden...

The paper discusses the post-communist development and evolution of the regionalization process in Romania. In the frst part, we distin-guish between two periods of regionalization: the preparation period for the EU accession, and the post-accession period. It turns out that the process of regionalization was oriented to EU criteria and expectation...

The strengthening of territorial cohesion at regional level represents one of the main objectives of the European Union (EU) Member States generally, and for the peripheries of the Eastern European countries as well (European Commission 2004, 2007, 2010). It represents an important challenge for setting the right cohesion policy goals and instrumen...

regional development in Romania

The information related to the profile of the population of a country constitutes a good starting point for the understanding of several social and economic aspects. At the same time, the demographic changes, both regionally and by residential environments, have implications on public policies (health, education systems, social services, transport...

Growth Pole Development and 'Metropolization' in Post-Socialist Romania. During the transition period the spatial planning institutions of Romania have undergone a constant and radical change from the communist system, based on state led industrialization and urbanization to a more flexible and democratic system. Among this changes are those induce...

Das ExWoSt-Forschungsprojekt „Wieder erstarkte Städte – Strategien, Erfolgsfaktoren, Ergebnisse“ hat sich von September 2012 bis Oktober 2013 mit den Entwicklungen in Städten beschäftigt, in denen augenscheinlich Fortschritte bei der Überwindung von Strukturproblemen erzielt wurden. Ziel des Projekts war es, unter Berücksichtigung übergreifender na...

In order to link the question of renewable energy to regional development and territorial cohesion, the article aims to present and evaluate recent initiatives taking place in the North-West Development Region of Romania, with emphasis on emerging renewable energy clusters. Moreover, we will present a case-study on geothermal energy cluster in Nort...

In this article we use the classic economic variable, the Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in order to investigate the economic convergence between regions in Romania and between the Romanian regions and EU in the period 2000–2010. The main results confirm that while there is an evident convergence between the country as whole and EU, the in...

The geopolitical change of direction taking place after 1989 induced a number of positive and negative social and economic changes in Hungary (as in the other post-socialist countries). Among the latt er changes perhaps the most depressive one is that in the past two decades the economic policy has not been able to achieve a sustainable and balance...

The political and economic changes that occurred at the end of the 1980s brought about considerable changes in the spatial structure of Romania. The goal to achieve a rapid economic growth overshadowed the objectives of social equity, economic and territorial cohesion, contributing to the increase in regional disparities. The main goal of the study...

A folyóiratban megjelent tanulmányokat két független szakértı lektorálta és ajánlotta köz-lésre.

Most rural areas of Eastern Europe came into a difficult situation with the economic and political changes that took place at the beginning of the 1990s while its full scope was not perceived at first. The issue of land restitution dominated everything. But also the dissolving of the collective farms and the return to market-economy structures conc...

A mechanical spring-block model is used for realizing an objective space partition of settlements from a geographic territory in region-like structures. The method is based on the relaxation-dynamics of the spring-block system and reveals in a hierarchical manner region-like entities at different spatial scales. It takes into account in an elegant...

The territorial disparities of Romania, as well as of other states, are a fundamental characteristic of the society's spatiality, with the changes thereof being conditional upon multiple factors. The economy and the society are unequally distributed spatially, this phenomenon being also accentuated by the regional and local specificities and by the...

EINFÜHRUNG Im neuen konzeptuellen Rahmen der " post-rural approaches " , Ruralität ist kein homogänes Phenomän, sondern sozial-demographisch und symbolisch differenziert (Brunori and Rossi, 2007, Lowe and Ward, 2009). Es wird über ein " new rural development paradigm " geschrieben (Regoli, Vittuari and Segre, 2011) eingeleitet durch ein Wandel von...

Regional policies in Romania

This contribution deals by the example of Romania with the efforts of a former Communist country to decentralize its administrative structures in the course of transformation and European integration focusing on the introduction of self government at the regional level. Another aspect are the reactions to requests of the European Union to develop a...