Chapter 9 of the volume explores how brownfields in a third-tier city in the Western Development Region of Romania (Reșița) became an important issue due to both deindustrialization and new investments.
The author examines the role of the entrepreneurial local administration in encouraging large residential and retail real estate development in a locality that seems unlikely to attract big investors. This happens when the neoliberal national framework enforces the local state to cope with administrative decentralization and autonomous financing, while the development of city infrastructure depends on attracting and managing European-funded projects and on creating adequate conditions for foreign direct investments. The analysis describes how developers are supported through public infrastructure investments, as the “entrepreneurial” municipality is hoping to make its city appealing to middle class, tourists, and further investors. This chapter is relevant for deindustrialized and impoverished cities worldwide, including in the Global North, advancing inquiries into local state restructuring and strategizing in third-tier cities.