Chapter 5 of the volume focuses on the capital of Gorj County from the South-West Oltenia Development Region, contrasting with the other cities studied in our book.
While in most of them, the integration of industrial platforms in real estate development cycles has increased after the financial crisis—and, in some of these localities, started even earlier—it has only just begun in Târgu Jiu. Among the factors that explain this situation is the continuous existence on its territory of the regional command center of open coal mining and the specific land-use policies of local public administration. This chapter illustrates the tensions and the common ground between industrial and real-estate-led development paths, which is part of a larger debate in the post-pandemic context of nearshoring. By describing how and why the recent urban transformation in Târgu Jiu, sprinkled with residential developments, is a function of deurbanization and reurbanization of coal-based energy production, the author proposes to rethink the shrinking cities approach.