Sustainable Development in Maramures County

We argue that a new type of adaptive change management is needed in Romania, in which social and territorial cohesion are key elements of governance, in accordance with sustainable development requirements. Based on critical analysis and comparative study, the paper investigates, using several approaches, the possibility to select those elements that enable determining a viable managerial sustainable development "model" for communities in Maramures County, Romania. New trends worldwide, and the multidimensional aspects of sustainable development of communities, were the subject of examination, through a regional polycentric approach, which led to a new model proposed by the authors. The result is a conceptual integrated model which promotes a balance of interaction between systems-economic, human, environmental and technological-in a dynamic, flexible and functional process.