Abstract. We demonstrate that from a historical perspective, spatial development involves elements of continuity. Although the anatomy of an economy is the result of an economic culture that is never ideologically free, the culture does not permeate everything. Rather, a time-resistant hard core consisting of sentences that define efficacy and rationality exists. Some former socialist countries have learned this lesson and have managed the transition to a market economy with positive results and without economic spasms. But Romania was ignorant of the lesson of continuity in spatial development in the last quarter of the century, significantly hindering its economic growth.

Keywords: spatial development, continuity, transition, rationality, ideology.