Taking Action Towards the Enhancement of Mining Heritage in Romania

In the last 10–15 years, a variety of bottom-up initiatives have emerged in Romania as a result of civic action, focusing on the safeguarding and enhancement of the cultural heritage despite the lack of legal support and an appropriate national strategy in the field. From the multitude of these initiatives, this article will focus on several developed in the former mining areas which, due to the standardized industrial production, display similar territorial and built environment features. Moreover, these case studies were considered during the 1945–1989 period as representing a particular urban typology, that of small-sized mono-industrial towns, which in the socialist urban theory was considered the base of an evenly distributed urban network, with all its economic, social, and cultural implications. During the post-1989 political and economic shifts, while facing the deindustrialization process, these towns passed through similar shrinking phenomena, proving to be extremely vulnerable to the challenges of deindustrialization. Therefore, this article will illustrate the cases of several former mining towns such as Baia Sprie, Anina, and Petrila from the perspective of recent civil society initiatives directed towards the post-industrial revitalization through the enhancement of the cultural heritage.