Dezvoltare și sărăcie în satele României

The paper laid the foundation of measuring the degree of development or poverty for all the villages of Romania. This is part of a larger project of building a social atlas of Romania; coming from a well structured Romanian social science tradition. The theoretical background of the measurement is the theory of capitals. Each village is considered as a combination of human, material, vital, symbolic and regional capital. Community development is considered as a latent continuous variable having maximum development and poverty as two poles. This latent variable is measured by a factor score index of 17 indicators. The index allows for measurement of village poverty in national and in regional hierarchies. Human capital is the most important component of village development or poverty. An explanation of village poverty is given in terms of poverty cycles and regression models. The poorest villages are peripheral villages within communes, located in plain areas, far from large cities and modernized roads, in low developed judets. Romania's villages are classified from a level and from a structural point of view.