ABSTRACT. – The Morphologic Component as a Development Premise for Small Towns. Case Study: Town of Vaşcău (Bihor County, Romania). In the post-communist Romanian urban landscape, small towns are a special category through some common features mainly regarding the difficulty of self-sustainability and self-management in the market economy and under the circumstances of losing the financial support of the State. In this context, it is mandatory to reassess the development potential of these localities and, firstly, the natural component as support for any human activity. A locality whose development was closely linked to the iron resources and their exploitation-related activities, Vaşcău falls into the category of small towns, monoindustrial and economically fragile, whose evolution was marked by a progressive decline, triggered at the same time with the cessation of the exploitation. In 1956, following the process of forced urbanization and industrialization, Vaşcău became a town, lacking a sufficiently diversified economy to support a future development. After 1989, like most of the small towns in Romania, Vaşcău went through a period of progressive decline due to economic difficulties. At present, without certain perspectives of economic revival, facing the youth migration and a precarious urban life, the town must reassess its development potential and recompose its part in the adjacent territory. Under these circumstances, we take into account the reassessment of the part played by the natural potential, firstly the morphologic one, in the town's ascending evolution. The answer to the question: Can the high capitalization of the morphologic component support the economic revival of the town? can be the starting point in the working out of an efficient and sustainable development strategy.
Keywords: small towns, morphologic component, development potential, economic revival, Vaşcău.