Article

The Limits of Shrinkage: Conceptual Pitfalls and Alternatives in the Discussion of Urban Population Loss

December 2015
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 40(2):n/a-n/a

Authors:

Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space

This essay reflects on the conceptual underpinnings of research on 'shrinking cities' over the last decade. It criticizes the definition of shrinkage in terms of urban population losses and argues that the state-of-the art research on 'shrinking cities' suffers from a misleading conceptualization of shrinkage which forces essentially different urban constellations into a universal model of 'shrinkage'. Four problems of this procrustean bed are discussed in detail: methodological pitfalls of threshold definitions of urban shrinkage; empirical contradictions; an absence of attention to scalar interrelations; and insufficient understanding of cities as historical processes. The essay ends with suggestions for a widened conceptualization of shrinkage and a new research agenda.

Impacts of urban shrinkage on the built environment and its environmental sustainability: An analytical review

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2023
ENVIRON RES LETT

The proliferation of case studies of shrinking cities in recent years has stimulated intense debate on the impacts of urban shrinkage. However, assessing the impacts of urban shrinkage from a comprehensive perspective could be more present. Also, there is a lake of analytical review of historical studies about the impacts of urban shrinkage. The built environment has different characteristics under different urban development patterns involving infrastructure, services, and social, economic, and structural factors, which provides a best practice for exploring the impacts of urban shrinkage. This study synthesizes the literature surrounding urban shrinkage and built environment changes, identifying that urban shrinkage notably affects the different components of the built environment and gives rise to four related environmental and sustainability impacts involving urban landscapes and structures, ecological sustainability, socioeconomic vitality, and residents' perceptions. Furthermore, there are interactions between the environmental and sustainability impacts, involving trade-offs and synergies between residents' perceptions, ecological sustainability, and socioeconomic vitality. The study also summarized the mainstream methods for assessing the impacts of urban shrinkage and explored the effects of urban shrinkage management strategies on improving the built environment. Finally, a framework for future direction is presented for the final to integrate the theories of urban shrinkage, people and land relationship, and sustainable urban development to guide further exploration in the field. In summary, this study implies that restoring and upgrading the built environment can pave the way for a common goal for long-term sustainable development. The value of this study is to provide relevant researchers with the knowledge to understand the developing frontiers of urban shrinkage impacts on built environments.

Les organismes HLM à l'épreuve de la décroissance urbaine

Thesis

Dec 2021

Marie Mondain

Depuis la fin des années 2000, de nombreux organismes HLM implantés en dehors des territoires métropolitains connaissent des difficultés croissantes (augmentation du nombre de logements vacants, incertitude sur la production neuve, diminution des recettes, etc.). Dans le même temps, les fédérations HLM mettent en avant le rôle central des organismes HLM dans ces territoires pour accompagner les collectivités locales confrontées, elles aussi, à des difficultés urbaines (vacance, diminution des prix immobiliers, perte de population). Cet apparent paradoxe sert de fil directeur à cette thèse. La notion de la décroissance urbaine, envisagée comme processus local d’affaiblissement démographique, économique et social des villes, est mobilisée pour rendre compte du caractère systémique des difficultés rencontrées par les organismes HLM. Elle permet également d’analyser la spécificité de la participation des organismes HLM aux politiques urbaines dans ces contextes de décroissance. Trois caractéristiques de l’activité des organismes HLM sont explorées : le repositionnement du logement social sur des marchés immobiliers marqués par des processus de dévalorisation, la redéfinition des enjeux des politiques du logement en contexte de décroissance, le décalage avec les politiques sectorielles du logement social et leurs évolutions récentes. Pour cela, une double enquête a été menée. À l’échelle nationale, la mobilisation des fédérations HLM pour intégrer les enjeux de décroissance urbaine aux politiques du logement a été retracée dans les années 1980 puis dans les années 2010. À l’échelle locale, cinq villes ont été retenues pour observer l’évolution des activités des organismes HLM en contexte de décroissance et leur participation aux politiques urbaines : Le Havre, Alençon, Flers, Argentan et L’Aigle.

Effects of housing asset deflation on shrinking cities: A case of the Tokyo metropolitan area

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2023
CITIES

With shrinking cities becoming a global issue, declining housing demands due to declining population leads to a reduction in land prices. Housing asset value deflation occurs mainly in suburbs, which has an economic effect on elderly households. Although some issues have already been indicated, it is unclear whether the deflation of housing assets will have a significant impact on shrinking cities. We used 209 municipality bases to predict the decreasing value of housing assets in the Tokyo metropolitan area from 2019 to 2045. The deflation of housing asset value was estimated by considering the regional differences in population. We adopted a regression model for analysis. The value of housing asset deflation is projected to be approximately 94 trillion JPY by 2045. Although the degree of deflation differed by municipality, the deflation of housing asset value occurred in nearly all municipalities: Central Tokyo was an exception. Additionally, the deflation value in many suburban municipalities exceeded 10 million JPY per household. Thereafter, a case study analysis was conducted using the average household in the Tokyo metropolitan area. The study results imply that deflation of housing assets is unavoidable for households in suburbs, and it becomes new barriers to promoting compact cities.

A Typology of Shrinking Cities: The Social and Economic Dynamic of Romanian Urban Network 2010-2020

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2021

The aim of the paper is to open the issue of multiple shrinkage trajectories in a context of extended urbanisation (Keil 2018) by delineating the different trajectories of Romanian cities. We employed principal component analysis to allow for a multi-criterial classification of Romanian cities based on k-means cluster analysis. Beyond the dominant representation of shrinkage as a process that is mainly correlated with population loss and economic decline, this paper calls for bridging together distinct dimensions which have been either under-studied, such as the aspect of human development, or studied separately across the existing literature, such as governance of shrinkage and economic growth. Therefore, the typology developed here accounts for understanding the process of shrinkage as a complex process, having multiple causes, which determine peculiar trajectories. The outcome confirms the existence of distinct and highly localised shrinkage identities (Martinez-Fernandez, Audirac, et al. 2012). We show that regrowth is not strictly related to the urban core, but it has more to do with a process of complexification of the landscape and social relations existing at the periphery of the city. Shrinking core cities coexists with growing peri-urban areas.

Effects of Housing Asset Deflation on Shrinking Cities: A Case of the Tokyo Metropolitan Area

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2022

Masaaki Uto

Multiscalar Mechanisms of Shrinking Small-Size Cities: The Case of Kermanshah Province

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2021

Despite scattered attempts to frame the processes of population and economic decline in cities of the global South through urban shrinkage, mechanisms identified in the core studies of this concept do not easily translate into the local dynamics and expressions in these cities. This paper investigates the applicability of urban shrinkage as a conceptual tool for analyzing the intertwined processes of population and economic decline in small-size cities of the South. In doing so, we examine the multiscalar production of economic decline and population loss in Kermanshah province in Iran and the small-size city of Harsin in this province. Adopting qualitative and quantitative methods, we identify different economic and political processes at national, provincial, and county scales that play out in shaping variegated geography of population loss and gain in this province and then examine the variegated spatial patterns of population loss and gain in Harsin. The paper suggests that instead of an analytical tool, urban shrinkage can be seen more as an umbrella term for framing such dynamics, at least in small-size cities of the South. Nevertheless, the paper concludes by identifying the ways in which urban shrinkage studies can provide a fruitful contribution to such an analysis.

Growth or Shrinkage: Discovering Development Patterns and Planning Strategies for Cross-Border Areas in China

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2021

Exponential growth and shrinkage of cities are two opposing trends in urban development. In this study, we analyze spatial growth and shrinkage at the regional level. We use the Guangzhou-Foshan region to identify the pattern and process of growth and shrinkage in the region with particular focus on cross-border areas. Specifically, we focus on how addressing shrinkage led to changes in urban planning with an in-depth discussion of its formation mechanism and the introduction of planning strategies. From the changes in light results during the period from 1985 to 2017 of the Guangzhou-Foshan region, stable areas are mainly concentrated in the old urban areas built before 2000, the largest urban area is of continuous growth type in line with the characteristics of urban expansion, and the area of shrinkage is small but concentrated in the cross-border areas. Particularly, since the 2008 financial crisis, extensive changes have been noted in the cross-border areas where such growing and shrinking areas coexist. Regional integration and the optimization of urban space would be effective methods to confront shrinkage. The findings may provide some reference for the urban shrinkage phenomenon that occurs in cross-border areas.

Quantifying spatiotemporal patterns of shrinking cities in urbanizing China: A novel approach based on time-series nighttime light data

Article

Nov 2021
CITIES

The shrinking of cities has become an increasingly global phenomenon, posing challenges for sustainable urban development. However, most focus remains on Europe and North America, and relatively little attention has been paid to the East Asia, especially the urbanizing China. Nighttime light (NL) dataset and its features (long-term time-series free access and large coverage) provide an alternative means to quantify shrinking cities. Here, we developed a new approach to identify shrinking cities and measure urban shrinkage, using corrected-integrated DMSP/OLS and NPP/VIIRS NL data. Based on this approach, we quantified the spatiotemporal patterns of shrinking cities in China from 1992 to 2019. Our study identified 153 shrinking cities in China during the study period, accounting for 23.39% of all 654 cities. These shrinking cities were widely distributed across eight economic regions and most provinces. The number of shrinking cities changed periodically and peaked following the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 and again after the Global Economic Crisis in 2008. The cities that experienced the greatest shrinkage intensity were mainly distributed in northeast China, with severe urban shrinkage occurring between 2008 and 2013. The new approach proposed in this study can effectively identify shrinking city hotspots and key periods of urban shrinkage. Our findings suggest that sustainable urban development in China must consider shrinking cities, which are faced with challenging and urgent sustainability issues different from those by rapidly growing cities.

Patterns of Urban Shrinkage: A Systematic Analysis of Romanian Cities (1992–2020)

Article

Full-text available

Jul 2021

EU post-socialist countries are nowadays the epicenter of urban shrinkage, despite economic growth trajectories reported during the last decades. However, systematic assessments of urban shrinkage patterns for this part of the continent are surprisingly insufficiently addressed in the literature, and the relationship between urban demographic decline/growth and economic decline/growth is still to be understood. This paper first delivers a state-of-the-art of the peculiarities of urban shrinkage in East-Central EU countries. Secondly, it employs an analysis grid to assess severity, prevalence, persistence, speed and regional incidence of urban decline in Romania—one of the most affected post-socialist countries within the European Union. Thirdly, it explores the statistical association between urban shrinkage severity and economic growth, on one hand, and between urban shrinkage severity and municipality revenues, on the other. Results show that urban shrinkage is currently increasing in prevalence and severity among Romanian cities, thus continuing an alarming trend that started in 1990. Secondly, the results pinpoint a statistically significant association between demographic shrinkage, local economic output and municipalities’ own-source revenues. However, the size effects are rather weak, suggesting a more nuanced relationship between economic and demographic urban growth than that predicted by some theories of urban change.

Does transportation infrastructure accelerate factor outflow from shrinking cities? An evidence from China

Article

Feb 2023
TRANSPORT POLICY

Shrinking cities have received increasing attention in recent years given that the emergence of these cities has raised concerns about social equity, stability and sustainability. While extensive studies have attempted to measure the structural changes from a demographic perspective, it remains unclear to what extent the development of transportation infrastructure may have influenced the formation of shrinking cities, especially considering a multi-dimensional structural change. This study fills this research gap by conducting a comprehensive impact assessment of transportation infrastructure on the development of shrinking cities in China, considering demographic, economic, and social changes. Based on the New Economic Geography theory, a novel multi-dimensional shrinking index system was developed and the characteristics of spatial distributions of different types of shrinking cities were analyzed using the GIS analysis. In particular, the impacts of two primary surface transportation modes (roadway and high-speed rail) on shrinking cities’ performance were examined using a two-stage least-square model and a Difference-in-Difference model. The results confirm that both the development of roadway and high-speed rail systems have exacerbated the loss of critical factors, such as permanent population, in most shrinking cities, although the degree of impact varies by the different modes and dimensions of shrinkage. Specifically, transportation infrastructure mainly intensifies the losses of economic and social factors in shrinking cities, while the impact on demographic loss is negligible. The research findings suggest that future infrastructure investment and the strategies for urban governance should be implemented more selectively based on the different types of shrinking cities to achieve more sustainable and resilient urban development.

What is happening in shrinking medium-sized cities? A correlational analysis and a multiple linear regression model on the case of Spain

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2023
CITIES

In Europe, urban shrinkage has emerged as a prominent and concerning phenomenon. It is affecting an increasingly large number of cities, particularly small and medium-sized ones. Nonetheless, the dynamics and causes vary at national level. It is a recent process in Spain, although in the 21st century, and especially since the great recession, the number of shrinking medium-sized cities has expanded. This evolution is yet to be sufficiently addressed in the literature, and, in politics and the media, it has been overshadowed by rural depopulation. The aim of this study is to shed light on what is happening in shrinking medium-sized cities, based on the case of Spain. To do so, we combine multiple demographic and socioeconomic variables with depopulation. The correlational analysis reveals a link between depopulation and ageing due to the fall in the potential working population, while births and the population aged below 16 years decreases and that aged over 65 years increases. Additionally, depopulation is correlated with the loss of working population, although no significant correlations can be established between depopulation and the economic variables considered. Drawing on the relationships identified, we established a statistically significant multiple linear regression model. This article represents a novel contribution that may be of practical use for policymakers.

Renaissance of villages for the revitalization of marginal areas

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2022

There is now a clear disparity between major cities and villages located in marginal areas of Italy. Progressive depopulation of inland areas and urban polarization such as consolidated territorial dynamics are difficult to dampen and adapt to the new paradigms of sustainable territorial development, although they have been abruptly redirected by the Covid 19 pandemic. The instability created by this pandemic offers the opportunity to redefine new parameters of intervention and new scenarios for the development of territories in relation to the new needs of decentralization and physical distancing. The project “Renaissance of villages for the revitalization of marginal areas” aims to create the conditions to repopulate and rebalance shrinking territories by establishing new centers of attractiveness. This project envisages the active involvement of municipalities and local authorities with the aims at implementing the multi-sectoral analysis of the tangible and intangible values of territories. It intends to develop an interactive web dashboard to be provided to municipalities in order to create both a learning environment and a spatial decision support system for future local policy actions towards a sustainable participatory local development. In this way, it is proposed a functional method with a place-based approach to managing the existing territorial complexity through innovative models of territorial governance and policymaking, among them the effective implementation of participatory and multi-actor visions of territorial development. Specifically, this paper provides the Italian villages’ archetypes through the quantitative spatial cluster multivariate analysis, which is the basis for the construction of the dashboard. To cluster the villages, the main variables have been identified, assesses, and mapped. The results are fundamental in order to define the future scenarios for each archetype assessing the Key Performance indicators (KPIs).

APPLICABILITY OF THEORETICAL APPROACHES OF URBAN SHRINKAGE TO SMALL TOWNS

Conference Paper

Full-text available

Nov 2018

Urban shrinkage has become a pathway of development for many cities across the world. It is receiving the increasing attention of scholars, but because of its complexity and multidimensionality, there is still no singular theoretical explanation of this phenomenon. Theoretical understanding of urban shrinkage range from life-cycle theories of urban development, through various explanations of suburbanization, the changing territorial divisions of labour and the second demographic transition to the more recent approaches of the effects of globalization. Seeking to develop broader conceptualization these approaches apply primarily to larger cities, while small towns have been ignored by urban theorists. But their shrinkage is evident, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, including Serbia. They are often considered as losers in the process of globalization and they were not the main focus of shrinking cities research. More recently concept of peripheralization emerged, which places urban shrinkage in a wider spatial and relational context. Also the theory of urban resilience offers a good approach for interpreting shrinkage linking it to certain natural phases in the process of adaptation. Following a critical overview of theoretical approaches of shrinking cities this paper discusses the possibility of their application in the explaining the shrinkage of small towns.

WASTELANDS. Recycling urban spaces for the shrinking city

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2023

Shrinkage processes are multidimensional phenomena affecting city sectors or regions that are experiencing a decline in their economic and social foundations and struggle in finding sound postindustrial revitalisation strategies. The symptoms of such structural crisis are population loss and ageing, economic recession, employment decline and social problems. The repeated international crises that followed the global economic, productive and cultural changes since the 1980s have resulted in the formation of neglected, underused and decay urban voids. The current abandonment scenario and related transformation opportunities are extremely complex and include a wide variety of typologically different wastelands. They comprise shrinking urban and peripheral fabrics, specific empty or obsolete infrastructure, derelict sites, and voids of with heritage value no longer animated by the socio-cultural “regime” that originated them. Wastelands are not unusual in Western society but their pervasiveness is certainly unprecedented given the general socioeconomic crises and dynamics. Abandonment is a challenging and constant process of space production to be filled with new functions by civil society. The re-cycle is even more challenging because the disposal of significant assets has occurred within a limited time frame compared to the post-industrial wastelands. Wastelands constitute a resource with relevant strategic opportunities for addressing a variety of issues – i.e., reducing land consumption, providing urban maintenance and rehabilitation, and increasing the supply of public open spaces, environmental quality characteristics, community standards and services. Last but not least, wastelands may provide new habitable and accessible spaces in contrast to various types of emergencies or polycrises the society is facing – i.e. climate, pandemics, territorial imbalances, ecological and energy resources impoverishment – thus addressing the transition scenario.

The Eternal Struggle for the City: In Search of an Alternative Framework for Citizen Participation in Urban Regeneration Projects in Shrinking Cities

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2023

The relevance of citizen participation in regeneration projects, particularly in shrinking cities, is widely acknowledged, and this topic has received a great deal of policy and academic attention. Although the many advantages of citizen participation in regeneration projects have been identified, its current forms have also received considerable criticism. In short, this criticism boils down to the conclusion that the ideal of citizen participation is not put into practice. This paper considers why this is the case, asking whether current participatory practices enable citizens to exercise influence as political actors in urban regeneration projects. In this paper, we examine this question based on Mouffe’s conception of the political, coupled with findings from our empirical research conducted in Heerlen North, The Netherlands. We conducted qualitative research on urban regeneration in the shrinking old industrial city of Heerlen. The findings reveal two distinct perspectives on citizen participation. Professionals see the existing context of citizen participation as a reasonable and practical but, in some respects, insufficient practice. Citizens’ views on participation are organized around feelings of anger, shame, and fear and are grounded in experiences of a lack of recognition. These experiences limit citizens’ abilities to exert true influence on regeneration projects. We conclude that efforts to regenerate shrinking cities should strive to recognize these experiences so as to create conditions that generate respect and esteem and, as such, enable urban social justice.

Knowledge Mapping of Urban Shrinkage Studies based on Published Journal Papers

Conference Paper

Jan 2022

Revisiting the impact of urban shrinkage on residential segregation in European cities

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2023

David Huntington

A nascent body of scholarship suggests that the depopulation of urban areas may catalyse residential segregation between different population groups and spatial concentrations of vulnerable groups. Based on a systematic literature review, this article summarises peer-reviewed articles and case studies on the role of urban shrinkage in shaping residential segregation in the context of European cities, and highlights methodological shortcomings and empirical knowledge gaps, thereby contributing to our understanding of the mechanisms through which population dynamics influence urban inequalities and their relevance for planning and policy. In sum, studies verifying the frequently assumed positive relationship between urban population loss and widening segregation remain few and far between. Moreover, mismatches between spatial and temporal scales, in addition to the indicators and metrics used in past studies, have hampered not only comparisons of how these dynamics play out in different contexts, but also the integration of spatial justice perspectives into urban planning.

Assessment of interactions between influencing factors on city shrinkage based on geographical detector: A case study in Kitakyushu, Japan

Article

Sep 2022
CITIES

The phenomenon of urban shrinkage is a growing global issue. Although urban shrinkage in Japan was mostly contributed to the aging population and low fertility, a comprehensive understanding of the influence mechanisms of shrinking cities in Japan is still challenging. Thus, a case study in Kitakyushu, Japan, one of Japan's largest shrinking cities, was conducted for quantitative analysis of the characteristics of urban shrinkage. Moreover, a geographical detector method was applied to reveal the interactive correlation between the influencing factors on urban shrinkage. This study investigated the spatial patterns of urban shrinkage in a complex context and explored the individual and interactive influences of urban demographic and morphological factors. We found that the duration of residents, underage population ratio, and aging population ratio were mostly correlated with population changes. The interactions between urban demographic and morphological factors were manifested as bivariate enhanced or nonlinear enhanced, which informed different types of people may have preferences for the urban morphology in the process of relocation. The findings provide useful information for understanding urban shrinkage at the local scale and help urban planners and policy-makers develop effective sustainable urban planning forms.

Spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of carbon emissions and their drivers in shrinking cities in China: Empirical evidence based on the NPP/VIIRS nighttime lighting index

Article

Nov 2022
J ENVIRON MANAGE

Shrinking cities are a category of cities characterized by population loss, and the environmental problems of these cities are often neglected. Using panel data from 2012 to 2019, this paper investigates the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of carbon emissions in shrinking cities in China and the driving factors. The results find that: (1) From 2012 to 2019, carbon emissions tend to increase in shrinking cities and decrease in non-shrinking cities. Due to earlier industrial development and ecological neglect, shrinking cities in Northeast China have higher carbon emissions than other regions. (2) Population size, industrial structure and public services promote the growth of carbon emissions in shrinking cities. The influence of living environment on carbon emissions in shrinking cities is not significant. There is an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) relationship between economic level and carbon emission. (3) In shrinking cities, the increase in commuting time and distance due to spatial expansion promotes the growth of carbon emissions. Foreign investment decreases with the loss of population, which reduces carbon emissions. Technological progress gradually declines as investment in science and technology decreases, which makes carbon emissions grow. This paper clarifies the driving factors of carbon emissions in shrinking cities in China, and therefore, the findings of this paper have important reference value for the formulation of carbon reduction policies in shrinking cities in developing countries.

Giving birth in dying towns

Chapter

Full-text available

May 2022

Anastasia Novkunskaya

The transformation of local labor markets in shrinking cities in Russia from 2010 to 2017

Chapter

Full-text available

May 2022

Evgenii Antonov

Urban shrinkage in Russia

Chapter

Full-text available

May 2022

Spatiotemporal evolution and driving mechanism of regional shrinkage at the county scale: The three provinces in northeastern China

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2022
PLOS ONE

The three northeast provinces are typical areas of regional shrinkage in China. A scientific understanding of their shrinkage and driving mechanism is conducive to the transformation and development of traditional industrial bases in China. This study analyzed the spatiotemporal evolution and driving mechanism of regional shrinkage at the county scale in the three provinces. The main findings are as follows: (1) 40.86% of counties in the three provinces shrank, forming three concentrated shrinking regions. However, comprehensively shrinking regions were narrowed and lessened with the introduction of the Northeast Area Revitalization Plan. (2) The population-related shrinking regions accounted for more than 90% and continued to expand. Such shrinkage was higher in the north than in the south. The degree of economy-related shrinkage was the most serious, and the hotspots were mainly concentrated in Liaoning Province. The scope of space-related shrinkage was most minor, and such shrinkage was relatively mild. (3) When it came to influencing factors, the shrinkage index was positively correlated with the proportion of the secondary industry, the output value of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery, the number of industrial enterprises above the designated size, fiscal expenditure, and the balance of resident deposits, and negatively correlated with the altitude, the proportion of the tertiary industry, and population aging. Geographically weighted regression (GWR) and ordinary least squares (OLS) produced similar regression results. The spatial pattern of influencing factors was consistent with the hotspot areas of population-related shrinkage or economy-related shrinkage, with significant spatial differences.

Long-Term Development Perspectives in the Slow Crisis of Shrinkage: Strategies of Coping and Exiting

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2022

Ruiying Liu

As a slow crisis, shrinkage is a situation where if actions are not taken to change things, a downward spiral or a long-term decline could happen. The complex, long-term nature of this crisis underlines the importance and potential of strategic approach. However, the conceptualisation of development strategy remains abstract, attributive, or focused on sectorial policies, lacking a view of their roles in the overall development. Against this context, this research investigates (1) how cities that have acknowledged shrinkage strategically organise degrowth, non-growth, and growth-promoting instruments in dealing with shrinkage, (2) what long-term development perspectives emerge out of their policies, and (3) what factors in the local context constrain their strategies. The empirical basis is a cross-national comparative case study between Den Helder and Zwickau, a Dutch and German midsize city, with a cross-sectorial view and a focus on the long-term aspects to reveal the conceptual structures of their strategies. This approach captures how and explains why the cities, as regional centres with similar attitudes towards shrinkage and comparable economic levels, adopt many similar policies but lean towards contrasting long-term perspectives—one strives to exit the crisis, the other has routinised coping with shrinkage and lacks the vision of a different future. Their differences stimulate reflection on the context and parameters for revitalisation, and their shared challenges underlines the need for theory development based on situated policymaking challenges and a more strategic approach in the development of shrinking cities.

Spatial and Temporal Evolution Characteristics of Carbon Emissions and Their Drivers in Shrinking Cities in China: Empirical Evidence Based on the Npp/Viirs Nighttime Lighting Index

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2022
J ENVIRON MANAGE

Diverse landscape of urban and regional shrinkage in Russia: Preconditions versus preconceptions in planning and policy

Chapter

Full-text available

May 2022

Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of National Characteristic Towns in China Using Nighttime Light Data

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2022

Characteristic towns have emerged along with China’s economic and social development. As a new model of small-town development, they have played an essential role in promoting industrial transformation and upgrade, improving the living environment, and promoting regional innovation and development. Accurate identification of the expansion characteristics of National Characteristic Towns (NCTs) is vital for optimizing the spatial layout of characteristic towns and adjusting the policies of characteristic towns. This study used a dataset on nighttime light to identify expanding NCTs and measure their expansion from 2000 to 2020. In total, 233 expanding NCTs were identified, accounting for 58.25% of the NCTs in China. The areas with the most significant intensity of expansion are primarily located in the East, South, and North economic regions. The critical period of NCTs expansion primarily occurred in the periods 2008–2011 and 2011–2014. Our results show that NCTs are highly consistent with the spatial distribution of urban agglomerations, and the development of NCTs is inherently related to the development of urban agglomerations in the region. The implementation of NCT policies has significantly promoted the development of NCTs in the Central and Western economic regions, which face challenging development issues and differ from those in the Eastern region. The method proposed in this study can effectively identify the ‘hot spots’ of expanding NCTs and the critical periods of their expansion.

The Uneven Shrinking City: Neighborhood Demographic Change and Creative Class Planning in Birmingham, Alabama

Article

Dec 2021

This research examines the uneven spatial-demographic distribution of population loss in one US "shrinking" city, Birmingham, Alabama, and analyzes the city's planning role in and response to population loss. It examines the connections between Birmingham's historic racial zoning law and urban renewal practices and the resulting patterns of depopulation and demographic change, and its present-day use of creative class planning-an approach critiqued for perpetuating inequalities-to revitalize neighborhoods and reverse depopulation. Using a novel methodological approach, this research describes the characteristics of Birmingham's population loss from 1970 to 2010 and examines the city's planning response to this population loss. Findings demonstrate that the variables associated with depopulation change over time and space. By linking these spatialized demographic trends to the city's current planning approach, we problematize creative class and residential attractiveness-based planning logics, while highlighting the importance of addressing inequality in the planning of shrinking cities.

Reviving Socialist Shrinking Towns in the Lower Danube Region in Serbia by Embracing Their Modernist Urban Heritage

Conference Paper

Full-text available

Nov 2021

Branislav M. Antonić

A socialist city was one of the most important spatial legacies of a socialist state in Eastern Europe, where its main tenets were adjusted to (re)form an urban environment for proletariat as a focal group. However, the implementation of a socialist-city agenda was confronted to the urban legacy of presocialist periods in many East European cities and towns with long history. Therefore, the ‘purest’ socialist cities were usually completely newly-formed urban settlements. The most notorious examples were usually bigger or middle-size cities with the large plants of heavy industry. They have been often exploited as a research theme last years, usually regarding their fast and uncontrolled urban shrinkage after the fall of socialism. This focus has left smaller socialist cities and towns somehow ‘in shadow’. This research is dedicated for three examples of new socialist towns located in the Lower Danube Region in Serbia: Donji Milanovac, Tekija, and Brza Palanka. All of them are unique due to their formation; old towns were flooded by the formation of two artificial lakes in the Iron Gates System on the Danube River, so new towns were fast built in modernist manner to relocate the population from the former ones. Today, these towns are more known in Serbia by extreme urban shrinkage due to the overall isolation by the formation of both lakes. Nevertheless, the recent rise of cultural tourism on the Danube has given a new impulse for the towns’ life. This paper aspires to revalorise their modernist urban heritage and to discuss if this element can be utilised for their further regeneration, driven by cultural tourism on the Danube.

Narratives of Crisis: How Framing Urban Shrinkage and Depopulation Shapes Policy and Planning Responses in Spain, Germany and The Netherlands

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2021

Bozhidar Ivanov

Academic research on urban shrinkage and depopulation has advanced significantly in recent years, mostly by attributing causality between the reasons and consequences of shrinkage in the positivist tradition of planning research. This paper critically analyzes shrinkage and depopulation as an issue of planning and policymaking in a broader institutional context. By applying a qualitative interpretive policy analysis methodology to planning and policy narratives from Spain, Germany and The Netherlands, this article highlights and scrutinizes how policymakers and planners have framed shrinkage, and how this framing has justified some of the selected planning and policy approaches. It is concluded that framing shrinkage in practice may only partially encompass the scientific definitions. It is also concluded that framing shrinkage and depopulation as a crisis may be determined by locally and temporally important issues as well as differences in planning cultures, which in practice may distance the understanding of the phenomenon from the scientific definitions. Debates on shrinkage conceptualization and the development of new planning concepts can become more applicable in practice by incorporating insights from qualitative investigations. This can bring them closer to planning practice and embed them in a wider planning system context, so as to produce more applicable and contextually sensitive proposals for addressing shrinkage.

Les utilisations intermédiaires des espaces vacants dans les villes en décroissance : transferts et transférabilité entre l'Allemagne et la France

Thesis

Dec 2017

Sarah Dubeaux

En France, la décroissance urbaine souffre encore d’une reconnaissance balbutiante à l’échelle nationale. Spatialement circonscrite, cette dynamique est toujours analysée comme un dysfonctionnement temporaire qui s’autorégulera. Que ce soit dans les documents d’urbanisme ou par les mécanismes des finances publiques, la décroissance est un impensé qui handicape durement des villes comme le Havre. Or les instruments structurent la façon de poser un problème et les moyens d’y répondre. Les fondements d’organisation des villes s’appuient ainsi sur une injonction à la construction conduisant à un phénomène d’évitement des friches. Ce parti-pris coûteux conduit à surspécialiser le marché immobilier et paradoxalement à créer de la vacance, notamment de logements. Selon le champ scientifique portant sur les villes en décroissance, l’Allemagne est une pionnière. La thèse propose d’examiner la mise en place d’autres stratégies quant au foncier et espaces vacants dans des villes de l’Est de l’Allemagne. À travers les cas de Berlin, Leipzig et Halle, l’analyse porte plus précisément sur les Zwischennutzungen (ZN), les utilisations intermédiaires ou temporaires, qui sont érigées au rang d’instrument dans le code de la construction. Ce travail met en lumière les limites d’un « modèle allemand » quant à la décroissance urbaine. Il interroge les mécanismes de circulation et d’édification de modèles urbains dans les villes en décroissance en fonction de différentes catégories d’acteurs ; institutionnels, scientifiques et fondateurs de ZN. Cette expérience, voire expérimentation allemande permet toutefois de mettre à distance certains automatismes havrais, voire de poser des éléments d’une reconfiguration de la politique foncière et immobilière de la Ville. Les quartiers sud sont ici pris en exemple d’une hybridation possible entre les éléments allemands et les dynamiques havraises.

Identifying and Classifying Shrinking Cities Using Long-Term Continuous Night-Time Light Time Series

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2021

Shrinking cities—cities suffering from population and economic decline—has become a pressing societal issue of worldwide concern. While night-time light (NTL) data have been applied as an important tool for the identification of shrinking cities, the current methods are constrained and biased by the lack of using long-term continuous NTL time series and the use of unidimensional indices. In this study, we proposed a novel method to identify and classify shrinking cities by long-term continuous NTL time series and population data, and applied the method in northeastern China (NEC) from 1996 to 2020. First, we established a long-term consistent NTL time series by applying a geographically weighted regression model to two distinct NTL datasets. Then, we generated NTL index (NI) and population index (PI) by random forest model and the slope of population data, respectively. Finally, we developed a shrinking city index (SCI), based on NI and PI to identify and classify city shrinkage. The results showed that the shrinkage pattern of NEC in 1996–2009 (stage 1) and 2010–2020 (stage 2) was quite different. From stage 1 to stage 2, the shrinkage situation worsened as the number of shrinking cities increased from 102 to 162, and the proportion of severe shrinkage increased from 9.2% to 30.3%. In stage 2, 85.4% of the cities exhibited population decline, and 15.7% of the cities displayed an NTL decrease, suggesting that the changes in NTL and population were not synchronized. Our proposed method provides a robust and long-term characterization of city shrinkage and is beneficial to provide valuable information for sustainable urban planning and decision-making.

Exploring the association between shrinking cities and the loss of external investment: An intercity network analysis

Article

May 2021
CITIES

While China's urbanization has been characterized by ‘growth-oriented’ development models, the recent litera- ture has highlighted the emergence of urban shrinkage in China, i.e., cities and regions that endure sustained population losses. For example, some mining towns in Northeast China have been losing both population and economic growth. Extending from Martinez-Fernandez et al.'s (2012) theoretical conjecture that urban shrinkage is a ‘symptom’ of the lack of global/external economic connections, this paper assesses whether the loss of in- vestment precedes urban shrinkage. The empirical study draws upon a unique dataset of investment flows be- tween mainland Chinese cities. The analysis shows that the correlation between investment network centrality and urban population changes is positively significant, and this significance is increased after the lag period of in- vestment network centrality is prolonged. Furthermore, when the value of investment network centrality climbs, their effect on urban population changes is going to be enlarged. The results are highly policy-relevant and will inform future policies regarding urban shrinkage management.

Shrinking cities in post-Soviet Russia

Article

Jan 2023

The paper is aimed at assessing scale and trends of urban shrinkage in post-Soviet Russia both at national level and by its major regions. Based on the calculation of average annual index of population loss according to population censuses (1989–2021) data, almost half of Russian cities in total have been shrinking for at least one of three intercensal periods. At the same time, in one of three centers the average annual depopulation exceeded 1% at the end of the entire period. In 1989–2002, the number of shrinking cities was not significant (less than a quarter in total), while increasing dramatically in subsequent inter-census periods to over than 1/3 of all urban settlements of the country by 2021. Study of spatial spreading of urban shrinkage phenomenon unveiled that its progress at different stages was mainly contributed either by resource-based cities of the northern and eastern parts of the country, or by urban settlements in old-developed regions, primarily the Non-Chernozyom areas. Absolute majority of all shrinking cities (87%) are minor units with a population under 50,000 inhabitants. Taking into account the general unfavourability of depopulation and the instability and variability of trends, six types of urban shrinkage trajectories with various combinations and alternations of depopulation phases were identified based on the sequence of depopulation phases within each of the three intercensal periods.

The distribution characteristics and driving mechanism of vacant land in Chengdu, China: A perspective of urban shrinkage and expansion

Article

Sep 2023
LAND USE POLICY

Identifying and quantizing the non-linear correlates of city shrinkage in Japan

Article

Jun 2023
CITIES

Understanding Urban Growth and Shrinkage From a Multiscale Perspective: Case Study of Jilin Province, China

Article

Jun 2023

Spatial clustering-based method for Italian marginal areas toward the sustainable regeneration: Verso la rigenerazione urbana sostenibile. Applicazione di un metodo di clusterizzazione spaziale per le aree marginali italiane

Article

Jan 2023

In Italy, there is a clear disparity between cities and villages located in marginal areas. The progressive depopulation of inland areas and the urban polarization represent consolidated dynamics difficult to adapt to the new paradigm of sustainable development. The post-Covid-19 pandemic scenario offers the opportunity to redefine new parameters of intervention and new visions for the regeneration of villages in accord with the new challenges of decentralization and distancing. The project «Renaissance of villages for the revitalization of marginal areas» (2021) aims to create the conditions to repopulate and rebalance shrinking territories by establishing new centres of attractiveness. This project envisages the active involvement of municipalities to implement multi-sectoral analysis and spatial assessment approaches in planning processes. It intends to develop an interactive web dashboard for local authorities and spatial planners to create both a learning environment and a participative spatial decision support system for future local policy actions toward sustainable local development. This study presents the project’s preliminary phase which aims to create the general framework of the web dashboard. A reconstruction of the village definition and the spatial selection of villages throughout Italy are presented as innovative aspects since the absence of an agreed definition of the village in the national and international level documents. Moreover, this study provides a quantitative spatial multivariate analysis cluster that analyzes, and groups Italian territories based on socioeconomic dynamics. The result of this analysis allows us to divide the territory into archetypes and to structure a framework that supports the definition of future scenarios for the regeneration of small urban areas considering the diversified needs and potential of the villages belonging to specific archetypes analyzed in the study.

Rethinking population shrinkage in the Australian context: a new research agenda

Article

Mar 2023

Whilst the study on the impact of shrinkage is well documented in North America and Europe, the effects of population-driven shrinkage on rural and regional communities in Australia is comparatively under-researched. This is despite existing literature on the volatility of population change in regional and rural Australia. Therefore, there is cause for establishing a typology of shrinkage in the Australian context, unpacking the different and complex economic, social and environmental causes and consequences, and therefore impacts, and establishing a framework for ongoing research. In this paper, we set out the rationale for this typology, indicating how population drivers are not only extensive, but further complicated by the as-yet-unknown impacts of COVID-19 and teleworking. Regarding policy solutions, we suggest that while mindsets are increasingly changing from a need to reverse population trends to, instead, embracing opportunities and alternative futures for many regional and rural Australian towns, we need to first establish a typology of population shrinkage that is reflective of the Australian context to ensure policy responses are locally appropriate. • Practitioner pointers • - Mindsets around planning policies on the impacts of population-driven shrinkage are beginning to shift towards understanding the specific socio-economic circumstances of the localised area and adopting appropriate policy instruments accordingly. • - To support this nascent shift, establishing a typology of shrinkage that is reflective of the Australian context is key.

Natural resource dependence and urban shrinkage: The role of human capital accumulation

Article

Mar 2023
RESOUR POLICY

Construction et trajectoire scientifiques de la notion allemande de Stadtschrumpfung (décroissance urbaine)

Chapter

Full-text available

Feb 2018

Roth Hélène

This article examines the German concept of Stadtschrumpfung (urban shrinkage), how it was scientifically constructed, its trajectory and international dissemination. It is based on a literature search and an original bibliometric method involving a wide-ranging trilingual corpus (German, English, French). First, the notion of the “ville décroissante“ (‘shrinking city’), an expression initially borrowed from German then adapted from English, will be placed on the spectrum of terms that are used to designate and qualify so-called weak cities and which reveal diverse theoretical and territorial issues. The recent international circulation of this notion raises the question of conceptual transfer and empowerment, the modes and means of which need to be studied. The reflux that the concept of the “shrinking city” is now undergoing in Germany, its country of origin, is due to new processes and challenges of fragile cities and the emergence of other concepts in German urban and regional studies.

Construction et trajectoire scientifiques de la notion allemande de Stadtschrumpfung (décroissance urbaine)

Book

Jan 2018

Hélène Roth

The effects of the local and regional conditions and inequalities on urban shrinkage: a multilevel analysis focusing on local population decline

Article

Jan 2023

Urban shrinkage is becoming a worldwide issue. However, empirical investigation still lacks an understanding of the spatial extent of the factors that drive local population decline, a prevalent aspect of urban shrinkage. Empirical evidence on multilevel factors relating to population decline is particularly scarce. We investigated the influences by analyzing economic, social, physical, and policy conditions at the local and regional levels. Regional conditions, as well as local conditions, are also related to the decline of the local population. The effect goes beyond economic and demographic conditions; conditions such as the local infrastructure level and development policy also significantly influence.

The Regional Disparity of Urban Spatial Expansion Is Greater than That of Urban Socioeconomic Expansion in China: A New Perspective from Nighttime Light Remotely Sensed Data and Urban Land Datasets

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2022

The regional disparity of urban expansion varies significantly in China’s different regions, hindering sustainable socioeconomic development. However, most studies to date have focused on a single aspect of urban expansion, e.g., urban spatial expansion (USS) disparity. This study attempts to define urban expansion from USS and urban socioeconomic expansion (USE) based on nighttime light remotely sensed (NTL) data and urban land datasets. Then, taking China’s 241 prefecture-level cities within different provinces as experimental subjects, the Dagum Gini (DG) coefficient and stochastic convergence test are employed to assess the disparity of urban expansion from two different dimensions. The results show that, on the national scale, the regional disparity of USS is always greater than that of USE and has a converging trend. Additionally, regional disparity is the main factor causing the difference between USS and USE, with average contribution rates of 55% and 45%, respectively. The average difference between USS and USE in the eastern region (ER) is greater than 10%, while it is the lowest in the northeastern region (NER) and shows a significant expansion trend in performance convergence with a regression coefficient of 0.0022, followed by the central (CR), eastern, and western (WR) regions. Through the panel unit root test, we found that urban expansion in China in terms of USS and USE has internal random convergence in certain regions under the premise of global random divergence, and there may be differentiation and formation of one or more convergence clubs in the future. Using this novel perspective to define urban expansion, this study quantifies the contributions of USS and USE to regional disparity and provides a scientific basis for governments to implement appropriate approaches to sustainable urban development in different regions.

Postsocialist shrinking cities in a triple geopolitical and socioeconomic context

Chapter

Full-text available

May 2022

Shrinkage under growth

Chapter

Full-text available

May 2022

Zhe Gao

Analysis of the Spatio-Temporal Patterns of Shrinking Cities in China: Evidence from Nighttime Light

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2022

Since the 1980s, rapid urbanization in China has been accompanied by city shrinkage. Identifying shrinking cities and clarifying the spatial and temporal patterns are of great significance for formulating policies and realizing smart shrinkage. City shrinkage characterized by population loss is a difficult challenge for urban planning and regional development policy-making. This paper uses 2012–2020 nighttime light (NTL) data to identify the spatial and temporal distribution patterns of shrinking cities in China and excavates the shrinking cities’ trend of agglomeration and dispersion further. The following results are obtained. (1) About 34.9% of prefecture-level cities are shrinking across the country but most severely in northeast and northwest China; (2) the number of shrinking cities fluctuates over time (2015 and 2020 are the peak shrinkage years). Shrinking cities in China show a northeast-to-southwest spatial distribution. (3) From 2012 to 2020, the aggregation degree of shrinkage continuously decreased (Low-Low) and the aggregation degree of growth continuously increased (High-High), indicating that shrinkage in northeast China was slightly alleviated and that the radiative effect of the growth pole was further enhanced. These findings help us better understand the trend of city shrinkage in China. Future work needs to be focused on the potential causes of the shrinkage. Furthermore, long-term trends also need to be investigated.

Postsocialist Shrinking Cities

Book

Full-text available

May 2022

This book provides a comparative analysis of shrinking cities in a broad range of postsocialist countries within the so-called Global East, a liminal space between North and South. While shrinking cities have received increased scholarly attention in the past decades, theoretical, and empirical research has remained predominantly centered on the Global North. This volume brings to the fore a range of new perspectives on urban shrinkage, identifying commonalities, differences, and policy experiences across a very diverse and vivid region with its various legacies and contemporary controversial developments. With chapters written by leading experts in the field, insider views assist in decolonizing urban theory. Specifically, the book includes chapters on shrinking cities in China, Russia, and postsocialist Europe, presenting comparative discussions within countries and crossnational cases on theoretical and policy implications. The book will be of interest to students and scholars researching urban studies, urban geography, urban planning, urban politics and policy, urban sociology, and urban development. Open Access: https://www.routledge.com/Postsocialist-Shrinking-Cities/Wu-Gunko-Stryjakiewicz-Zhou/p/book/9780367415235

Postsocialist shrinking cities

Chapter

Full-text available

May 2022

Le geografie emergenti della contrazione insediativa in Italia. Analisi interpretative e segnali per le politiche

Article

May 2021

L'articolo intende esplorare l'emergente geografia della contrazione insediativa del territorio italiano. Poiché il riconoscimento di una nuova geografia della contrazione richiede un'azione di smontaggio delle immagini consolidate legate allo spopolamento e l'abbandono dei contesti montano-rurali, l'aggettivo "emergente" assume qui un ruolo fondamentale. L'ipotesi che muove questo lavoro è infatti che le cosiddette aree interne siano un ambito di contrazione del tutto consolidato. La geografia della contrazione investe però anche altri contesti. Con intensità differenti riguarda porzioni di territorio al centro nel processo di urbanizzazione novecentesca, come interstizi e frange metropolitani più fragili, le città medie con differenti livelli di centralità funzionale, i contesti periurbani e del continuum urbano-rurale di pianura e di collina, ovvero una parte consistente di quella che chiamiamo Italia di mezzo.

Strengthening the evidence base for regeneration strategies: the European statistic as a basis for creating territorial knowledge of demographic change

Chapter

Full-text available

Jan 2012

Manuel Wolff

Varieties of Shrinkage in European Cities

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2013
EUR URBAN REG STUD

The issue of urban shrinkage has become the new ‘normal’ across Europe: a large number of urban areas find themselves amongst the cities losing population. According to recent studies, almost 42 per cent of all large European cities are currently shrinking. In eastern Europe, shrinking cities have formed the overwhelming majority – here, three out of four cities report a decrease in population. Shrinkage has proved to be a very diverse and complex phenomenon. In our understanding, a considerable and constant loss of population by an urban area classifies it as a shrinking city. So, while the indicator of shrinkage used here is rather simple, the nature of the process and its causes and consequences for the affected urban areas are multifaceted and need to be explained and understood in further detail. Set against this background, the article presents, first, urban shrinkage as both spatially and temporally uneven. Second, this article shows that the causes of urban shrinkage are as varied as they are numerous. We explore the ‘pluralist world of urban shrinkage’ in the European Union and beyond. The article provides an original process model of urban shrinkage, bringing together its causes, impacts and dynamics, and setting them in the context of locally based urban trajectories. The main argument of this arrticle is that there is no ‘grand explanatory heuristics’ of shrinkage; a ‘one-size-fits-all’ explanatory approach to shrinkage cannot deliver. To progress and remain relevant, one ought to move away from outcome-orientated towards process-orientated research on urban shrinkage.

Demographic Change and Local Development: Shrinkage, Regeneration and Social Dynamics

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2012

Greening the Rust Belt: A Green Infrastructure Model for Right Sizing America's Shrinking Cities

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2008

Problem: Existing planning and redevelopment models do not offer a holistic approach for addressing the challenges vacant and abandoned properties create in America's older industrial cities, but these shrinking cities possess opportunities to undertake citywide greening strategies that convert such vacant properties to community assets.Purpose: We define strategies shrinking cities can use to convert vacant properties to valuable green infrastructure to revitalize urban environments, empower community residents, and stabilize dysfunctional real estate markets. To do this we examine shrinking cities and their vacant property challenges; identify the benefits of urban greening; explore the policies, obstacles, and promise of a green infrastructure initiative; and discuss vacant property reclamation programs and policies that would form the nucleus of a model green infrastructure right-sizing initiative designed to stabilize the communities with the greatest level of abandonment.Methods: We draw our conclusions based on fieldwork, practitioner interviews, and a review of the current literature.Results and conclusions: We propose a new model to effectively right size shrinking cities by (a) instituting green infrastructure plans and programs, (b) creating land banks to manage the effort, and (c) building community consensus through collaborative neighborhood planning. Our model builds on lessons learned from successful vacant property and urban greening programs, including nonprofit leadership and empowerment of neighborhood residents, land banking, strategic neighborhood planning, targeted revitalization investments, and collaborative planning. It will require planners and policymakers to address challenges such as financing, displacement of local residents, and lack of legal authority.Takeaway for practice: We conclude that academics, practitioners, and policymakers should collaborate to (a) explore alternative urban designs and innovative planning and zoning approaches to right sizing; (b) collect accurate data on the number and costs of vacant properties and potential savings of different right-sizing strategies; (c) craft statewide vacant property policy agendas; and (d) establish a policy network of shrinking cities to share information, collaboratively solve problems, and diffuse policy innovations.Research support: Our field work was supported by technical assistance grants and contracts through the National Vacant Properties Campaign.

Theorising Socio-spatial Relations

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2008

This essay seeks to reframe recent debates on sociospatial theory through the introduction of an approach that can grasp the inherently polymorphic, multidimensional character of sociospatial relations. As previous advocates of a scalar turn, we now question the privileging, in any form, of a single dimension of sociospatial processes, scalar or otherwise. We consider several recent sophisticated 'turns' within critical social science; explore their methodological limitations; and highlight several important strands of sociospatial theory that seek to transcend the latter. On this basis, we argue for a more systematic recognition of polymorphy-the organization of sociospatial relations in multiple forms-within sociospatial theory. Specifically, we suggest that territories (T), places (P), scales (S), and networks (N) must be viewed as mutually constitutive and relationally intertwined dimensions of sociospatial relations. We present this proposition as an extension of recent contributions to the spatialization of the strategic-relational approach (SRA), and we explore some of its methodological implications. We conclude by briefly illustrating the applicability of the 'TPSN framework' to several realms of inquiry into sociospatial processes under contemporary capitalism.

The limits to scale? Methodological reflections on scalar structuration

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2001

Neil Brenner

Fruitful new avenues of theorization and research have been opened by recent writings on the production of geographical scale. However, this outpouring of research on scale production and on rescaling processes has been accompanied by a notable analytical blunting of the concept of geographical scale as it has been blended unreflexively into other core geograph- ical concepts such as place, locality, territory and space. This essay explores this methodological danger: first, through a critical reading of Sallie Marston's (2000) recent article in this journal on 'The social construction of scale'; second, through a critical examination of the influential notion of a politics 'of ' scale. A concluding section suggests that our theoretical grasp of geographical scale could be significantly advanced if scaling processes are distinguished more precisely from other major dimensions of sociospatial structuration under capitalism. Eleven methodological hypotheses for confronting this task are then proposed.

Declining Suburbs in Europe and Latin America

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2012

Suburban shrinkage, understood as a degenerative urban process stemming from the demise of the Fordist mode of urbanism, is generally manifested in a decline in population, industry and employment. It is also intimately linked to the global restructuring of industrial organization associated with the rise of the post-Fordist mode of urbanism and, more recently, the thrust of Asian industrialization. Framed in the discourse of industrial urbanism, this article examines the first ring of industrial suburbs that developed around large cities in their most rapid Fordist urbanization phase. These industrial suburbs, although they were formed at different times, are today experiencing specific mutations and undergoing profound restructuring on account of their particular spatial position between the central area and the expanding peripheries of the post-Fordist metropolis. This article describes and compares suburban decline in two European cities (Glasgow and Paris) and two Latin American Cities (São Paulo, Brazil and Guadalajara, Mexico), as different instances of places asymmetrically and fragmentarily integrated into the geography of globalization.

Shrinking Cities: Urban Challenges of Globalization

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2012

Urban shrinkage is not a new phenomenon. It has been documented in a large literature analyzing the social and economic issues that have led to population flight, resulting, in the worse cases, in the eventual abandonment of blocks of housing and neighbourhoods. Analysis of urban shrinkage should take into account the new realization that this phenomenon is now global and multidimensional — but also little understood in all its manifestations. Thus, as the world's population increasingly becomes urban, orthodox views of urban decline need redefinition. The symposium includes articles from 10 urban analysts working on 30 cities around the globe. These analysts belong to the Shrinking Cities International Research Network (SCIRN), whose collaborative work aims to understand different types of city shrinkage and the role that different approaches, policies and strategies have played in the regeneration of these cities. In this way the symposium will inform both a rich diversity of analytical perspectives and country-based studies of the challenges faced by shrinking cities. It will also disseminate SCIRN's research results from the last 3 years.

The trajectories of European cities, 1960–2005

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2007
CITIES

Cities have been viewed for several decades as the places within Europe typically facing the greatest problems associated with economic and population decline. A contrasting view has emerged recently that identifies cities as sites of economic dynamism and social vitality. The paper offers evidence on population change for 310 cities across the whole of Europe to assess how their fortunes have changed over the period from the 1960s through to 2005. It reveals considerable diversity of experience, with one in seven cities described as resurgent on a strict definition of decline followed by growth. They are outnumbered by cities that have experienced continuous growth and those that have had a recent downturn. Taking a long-term overview, the growth of European cities has generally slowed over the last few decades. A short-term perspective suggests something of a recovery within the last five years. Growth and revival are more common in Western Europe and decline is more widespread in the East. The position of larger cities also appears to have improved slightly relative to smaller cities.

Peripheralization: Theoretical Concepts Explaining Socio-Spatial Inequalities

Article

Feb 2015

Manfred Kühn

The current increase in socio-spatial inequalities in Europe has led to a revival of the terms “peripheralization” and “marginalization” in spatial research. In contrast to the geographical notion of a “periphery”, which is synonymous with distance to a centre and being situated on the fringes of a city, region or nation, research on “peripheralization” describes the production of peripheries through social relations and their spatial implications. The main part of the article provides a critical review of theoretical concepts which attempt to explain socio-spatial disparities between centralization and peripheralization processes. This includes theories of economic polarization, social inequality and political power. Building on this, a multidimensional concept of socio-spatial polarization is outlined, one which comprises processes of centralization and peripheralization in economic, social and political dimensions. Finally, implications are drawn for spatial planning regarding the polarization between metropolitan and non-metropolitan regions and areas for further research are highlighted.

Spatial Divisions Of Labour: Social Structures And The Geography Of Production

Book

Jan 1984

Doreen Massey

The Economic Theory and the Underdevelopped Regions

Article

Jan 1957

Gunnar Myrdal

The Bounds of Smart Decline: A Foundational Theory for Planning Shrinking Cities

Article

Jun 2011

Economic decline has led to a new wave of population decline throughout the US, meaning more and more cities are shrinking. Growing interest in using smart decline principles to respond to shrinkage has been met with controversy in cities such as Detroit and Cleveland. This paper advances a foundational theory of smart decline that takes as its starting point discussions of ethics, equity, and social justice in the planning and political theory literature, but is well grounded in observations of successful smart decline practice.

New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood

Book

Sep 2004

Neil Brenner

Neil Brenner has in the past few years made a major impact on the ways in which we understand the changing political geographies of the modern state. Simultaneously analyzing the restructuring of urban governance and the transformation of national states under globalizing capitalism, 'New State Spaces' is a mature and sophisticated analysis of broad interdisciplinary interest, making this a highly significant contribution to the subject. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/politicalscience/9780199270057/toc.html

The Shrinking Mining City: Urban Dynamics and Contested Territory

Article

Mar 2012

Shrinking mining cities — once prosperous settlements servicing a mining site or a system of mining sites — are characterized by long-term population and/or economic decline. Many of these towns experience periods of growth and shrinkage, mirroring the ebbs and flows of international mineral markets which determine the fortunes of the dominant mining corporation upon which each of these towns heavily depends. This dependence on one main industry produces a parallel development in the fluctuations of both workforce and population. Thus, the strategies of the main company in these towns can, to a great extent, determine future developments and have a great impact on urban management plans. Climate conditions, knowledge, education and health services, as well as transportation links, are important factors that have impacted on lifestyles in mining cities, but it is the parallel development with the private sector operators (often a single corporation) that constitutes the distinctive feature of these cities and that ultimately defines their shrinkage. This article discusses shrinking mining cities in capitalist economies, the factors underpinning their development, and some of the planning and community challenges faced by these cities in Australia, Canada, Japan and Mexico.

Urban Population Loss in Historical Perspective: United States, 1820–2000

Article

Mar 2009

Robert A. Beauregard

Employing an historical perspective, the author mounts a quantitative and theoretical assessment of population loss in the large cities of the United States. Three periods are considered: one prior to 1920 when large city population loss was aberrant; a second which captures the severe decline of the decades after World War II, and a third that encompasses the more recent shrinkage of cities. Population loss is measured in terms of prevalence, severity, and persistence and is also analyzed geographically. The author further identifies factors affecting population loss which are common and unique to each period. Although population loss has diminished, a number of cities are locked into trajectories of chronic loss, suggesting that a new phase of urbanization has yet to materialize.

Shrinking cities: international perspectives and policy implications

E. Cunningham-Sabot
I. Audirac
S. Fol
C. Martinez-Fernandez

Peripheralization: the making of spatial dependencies and social injustice

M. Kühn
M. Bernt

<http://www.ufz.de/export/data/400/39021_D7_living_document_submission_290710.pdf> (accessed 23 August 2015)

D. Rink
A. Haase
M. Bernt
V. Mykhnenko

Competitive European peripheries: advances in spatial science

N. Smith

Spaces of globalization: reasserting the power of the local

E. Swyngedouw

<http://www.shrinkingcities.eu/fileadmin/Dortmund/Wolff_SC_Data.pdf> (accessed 24 August 2015)

M. Wolff

Mykhnenko 2010 Synthesis-challenges of shrinkage (WP 3 of the Shrinksmart-Project) http

D A Rink
M Haase
V Bernt

The Limits of Shrinkage: Conceptual Pitfalls and Alternatives in the Discussion of Urban Population Loss

Abstract

No full-text available

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