For the last two decades, the dynamics of the city of Bucharest was contradictory: a period of initial demographic growth was followed by one of decline and both have effects over the interface with the surrounding rural space. One of the major paradoxes of the evolution of the relationship between Bucharest and its regional space is the great disparity between these two, due to the excessive industrialisation policy of an extensive type. The post-socialist evolution is characterized by the pressure of the developed space, pushing on from the city towards its surrounding region and as a consequence the primary and most significant effects took place within the rural - urban interface. The analyzing methodology was based on the following steps: individualising of the territorial active interface between the city and its neighbouring space, identifying of the processes standing behind the structural change of this interface, developing an analysis and a diagnosis of its present characteristics and finally emphasising some of the most significant directions for sustainable development interventions. As for the spatial delineation, this interface overlaps the first two circular bands of basic urban and rural administrative units as well as some parts of the open, unbuilt areas of the city periphery within its own administrative limits. The economic growth following the year 2000 and the real estate development have completely changed the morphology and the initial functions of the interferential space of the Capital with its surrounding area. The spatial forms coming out form the interaction of the centripetal and centrifugal forces, led to a chaotic character of the urban-rural interface, specific for a weakly regulated or deregulated territory. The present physiognomic and functional characteristics are pointing out the amplifying and hindering effects of the external mixed railway and road ring as well as the important role of the main axes penetrating the Capital. Additionally, the aggression of the built-up space over the natural and anthropic values becomes more visible due to its "hard" contact with the woodlands and lakes of the analysed area. The sustainable development of the urban-rural interface within such a context, demands for a complex group of policies which should contribute to the reconstruction of buffer areas to make them stand against the chaotic expansion of constructions, to the landscape reconstruction of some parts of the Northern area accompanied by clear regulations for interventions in the Southern part of the city, the clarification and regulation of the role played by the external ring of the city and a more limpid definition of the role played by the second peripheral corridor; the regulation of the regional public transport, the setting up of a system of protected areas with precise uses, the delocalization of some of the economic activities. All these must provide economic, housing and leisure activities as well as the capacity to ensure the necessary "breath" to the metropolis by the fluency of flows from and towards the city
