ABSTRACT
Romania is a country that has undergone profound changes in its economic and settlement structure, changes associated with extensive migration from the countryside to the towns and the growth of commuting to work in urban industrial centers. Bulgarian and Romanian economists, sociologists, and urbanists expect a whole number of urgent problems to be solved by their planned development. In 1950 rural population still amounted to 72.6% of the total, but in the course of twenty years this proportion has declined to the extent over half the Bulgarian population lives in urban settlements. Group settlement systems are regarded as new and higher forms, replacing the pattern of separate and relatively inde — pendent communities. Preventing the excessive growth of cities, which is the official policy of the Bulgarian Communist Party, is also to be achieved by means of the group settlement system.
