shrinking cities2

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The combined effects of deindustrialisation, suburbanisation, post-Soviet recomposition and

demographic factors have produced a hitherto unknown model for decline (Oswalt, 2006!

The term shrinking cit" usuall" describes a densel" populated urban area that has on the one hand

faced a population loss in large parts and is on the other hand undergoing economic transformation

with some s"mptoms of a structural crisis (Shrinking #ities $nternational %esearch &etwork! '

Shrinking #it" can be defined as a cit" that has eperienced population loss, employmentdecline

and social problems as s"mptoms of a structural crisis()artine*-+ernande* et al!, forthcoming!

! Justin B. Hollander (2010), Can a City Successfully Shrin! "#idence from Sur#ey $ata

on %ei&hborhood 'uality, rban 'ffairs %eview ./( 21.

$ata and ethod

$n conceptuali*ing decline for this research, $ borrowed from the work of eauregard (200 and

3ollander et al! (200 in defining declining simpl" in terms of net loss in population from one

'merican 3ousing Surve" period (between . and 4 and a second period (between / and

200/! &o surve"s were conducted fewer than four "ears apart from one another! ecause of

limitations in using the 'merican 3ousing Surve", $ focused onl" on those metropolitan areas where

at least two surve"s were conducted in the past 5 "ears, and within the metropolitan areas $ eaminedonl" central cities! emographic data on population and occupied housing change were compiled and

eamined across the 74 cities! $ focused m" investigation on population estimates and the mean score

residents assigned for assessing the 8ualit" of their neighborhood! $f this stud" were concerned with

the concept of neighborhood 8ualit", such an approach would be flawed because of the mismatch in

scale between where residents are being asked to rate (neighborhood and the wa" the data are being

aggregated and anal"*ed (cit"! ut instead, this stud" is focused on the concept of happiness, and

9opinion of neighborhood 8ualit": is being used as a surrogate variable, however imperfect! This

approach is well grounded in the literature on happiness, where a person ma" be asked to rate his or

her relations with his or her spouse to serve as a surrogate for his or her overall happiness (+re" and

Stut*er 2005! +or each cit", $ looked at the scores for both time periods as well as changes in

population and occupied housing units! escriptive statistics measuring the central tendenc", range,

and variation were calculated and graphed! $n addition, a difference of means test was calculated todetermine, statisticall", how the group of shrinking cities differed from the group of growing cities;

how much heterogeneit" eisted among the cities!

2! $vonne 'udirac, S"lvie +ol, and #ristina )artine*-+ernande* (200 Shrinin& Cities in a

ime of Crisis, erkele" erman", +rance,

nited ?ingdom, South ?orea, 'ustralia, and =apan! S#i%&@s

httpABBwww!shrinkingcities!comBh"pothesen!0!htmlEFGH

International Research, Ostfildern-%uit, >erman", 3atCe#ant* Derlag, .7-.4!

#onversion Strategies under ncertaint" in erman", Thorsten Iiechmann, #hair of %egional


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randenburg Techncial niversit" (T

't the beginning of the 2st centur", the shrinking cities phenomenon is widespread over Jurope! This

applies to Iestern Juropean industrial agglomerations in economic decline and to peripheral, sparsel"

populated areas in &orthern Jurope as well as to rural areas in Southern Jurope suffering from

emigration and a rapid decrease in birth rates! Ket it is the former socialist transformation regions in

#entral and Jastern Jurope that have been hit hardest b" population decrease and industrial regression

since the political changes in 0!

This paper focuses on the post-socialist t"pe of shrinking cities! $t highlights the eample of resden

in Jastern >erman", where the breakdown of the state-directed econom" caused economic decline,

industrial regression, and high unemplo"ment rates! ue to out-migration and decreasing birth rates,

the cit" lost 60,000 of its 500,000 residents within one decade (4-! 's a conse8uence, too

man" housing and office vacancies as well as infrastructure oversupplies plagued the cit"! Ket the

administrative s"stem was still directed towards growth obCectives throughout the 0s!

'fter 2000 this situation changed dramaticall"! The new strategic plan for resden (200 is no longer

growth-oriented! $nstead, the plan focuses on a model of the compact 9Juropean cit",: with an

attractive urban center, reduced land consumption, and a stable population! 3owever, in another

unepected turn of events, within the last seven "ears the cit" has eperienced an unepected growthof 25,000 residents, despite the fact that the suburban landkreise (counties are still losing population!

Surprisingl", processes of suburbani*ation have turned into processes of reurbani*ation! Toda" in

resden, areas of shrinkage and decline are in close proimit" to prospering and wealth"

communities! The strategic challenge is to deal with this patchwork while accepting that the future

remains unpredictable! 3ence, strategic fleibilit" becomes more important than the strateg" itself!

Whats the bottom line?

The description of resden@s development path since the political changes nearl" two decades ago

demonstrates that most trends were ver" hard to predict if not completel" unforeseeable! $n the 0s,

people1particularl" politicians and plannersLwere too optimistic about the future! This reaction was b"

no means eceptional for Juropean post-socialistic cities in the 0s! $n practicall" ever" Jast

>erman cit", local economic development was overestimated at that time! Gater on, as people focusedon correcting this false estimation, nobod" in resden anticipated the amount of new growth that

would take place after the turn of the millennium! Toda", areas of shrinkage and decline are in close

proimit" to prospering and wealth" communities! The strategic challenge is to deal with this

patchwork while accepting that the future remains unpredictable! $n shrinking cities, there is truth in

the sa"ing that 9for ever" comple problem, there is a simple solution that is wrong!: Ginear trend

etrapolation or 9business as usual: is ver" likel" to lead to counterproductive strategies! The onl"

stead" trend in resden has been a continuing trend reversal! 3ence, strategic fleibilit" has become

more important than the strateg" itself! #ities that are, like resden, characteri*ed b" manifold talents

and confronted with d"namic change in their fundamental parameters within a historicall" short period

of time should neither plan for growth nor for shrinkage! The" should plan to sta" fleible and make

their cities adaptive to change!

Shrinin& Cities in rance and reat Britain Silent /rocess!

JmmanuMle #unningham-Sabot, niversit" of %ennes $$

)ost of the shrinking cities in +rance, however, belong to a second t"pe, which is constituted of small

urban areas.! These are located in the middle of the countr", from the 'rdennes in the &orth to the


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are those that are isolated from infrastructure networks or urban networks! )ost of them are located in

the heartland of +rance!

Iith the eception of Gondon, urban shrinkage is specific to large urban settlements (large cities and

metropolitan areas while a significant growth is occurring in medium cities and towns! - Other Garge

#ities (Nfreestanding citiesN such as Jdinburgh or &ottingham! There are fourteen, their populations

ranging from 50,000 to .50,000! The" are t"picall" large industrial centers or ports, and of these

fourteen large cities, eight are shrinking!

3rban Shrina&e in Bra+il

$n ra*il the problem of urban shrinkage does not follow the patterns found in Jurope or the nited

States! 'n unfair territorial d"namic generated b" the ra*ilian land oligopol", the government@s

incapacit" to produce Cobs, the highl" speculative real estate market, the lack of housing subsidies for

low income workers, and the inade8uate use of land policies has led to the emergence of empt" rural

towns, emptied and deca"ing (or sometimes gentrified metropolitan areas, and swollen slums on

metropolitan outskirts! ' recent anal"sis published b" the ra*ilian $nstitute of >eograph" and

Statistics ($>J shows that 2/!2Q of the 5560 municipal districts in ra*il (containing .6 cities

lost population between and 2000 ($>J 200.! 3owever, these numbers do not impl" realsocio-economic shrinkage for larger urbani*ed areas! 'lmost all (Q of the actuall" shrinking


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municipal districts have fewer than 50,000 inhabitants, and in man" of them, their urbani*ed areas

have continued growing while the rural areas emptied!

Conclusions

+ive factors could be pointed out as the primar" reasons for the high degree of population migration in

metropolitan areas of ra*ilA the highl" speculative real estate marketR 2 the political and economic

oligopol" that keeps for themselves urban land with infrastructure, 7 the idleness of infrastructured

land in central areasR . the lack of housing subsidies for low-income residentsR 5 the lack of Cobs and

infrastructured areas in close proimit" to low-income housing! 's a result of these trends, cit" cores

have been losing population, land prices have risen and gentrification has increased, while blue-collar

residents have migrated to the outskirts of the cit", illegall" occup"ing fragile environmental areas!

Shrinin& Cities in the 3nited States in Historical /erspecti#e 4esearch %ote

%obert '! eauregard

$n order to document and assess these relationships, $ use aggregate (and net population loss as the

measure of decline and shrinkage! 'lthough population change cannot full" capture the developmental

fortunes of a cit", it is a reliable indicator of the cit"@s attractiveness to investors and households as

well as a direct conse8uence of economic growth! The 8uantitative evidence comes from a data set ofthe 50 largest !S! cities b" population for ever" decade from /0 to 2000! The data set consists onl"

of central cities of metropolitan areas! Thus, the anal"sis privileges the political status of and

boundaries between the core cit" and its suburbs over the NnaturalN urban area! That is, it ignores the

relationship between cit" growth and regional (or metropolitan growth! $ do so because, at least in the

nited States, central cities were the locus of decline in the postwar decades and are politicall" and

fiscall" important in their own right!

Conclusion

Set in historical perspective, the current period of shrinkage is distinguishable from the earlier period

of decline and an earlier period of growth as well! 3owever, the differences mainl" lie in the

prevalence of population loss, less so in its severit", and not in its persistence or lack thereof! +ewer

large cities cast off residents in the 40s and 0s, but the ones that did were, for the most part, thesame ones that had declined in the previous three decades! Onl" the severit" of their losses abated!

These cities, one-half of all the shrinking cities, remind us that decline endures! The countr" remains

in the grip of a seemingl" diminished parasitic urbani*ation! (%enewed immigration, the shift to

financial, producer, and consumer services, the build-out of peripheral areas, and a new-found interest

in cit" living are all factors in this weakening! ntil these cities begin to grow, then, an" claim that

shrinkage is an aberration, and thus different from s"stemic decline, will be difficult to defend! Thus,

the issue for an"one researching shrinking cities is the persistence of loss from earlier decades, not

what new forces have suddenl" brought about shrinkage! The ke" 8uestion isA Ih" have these

particular cities not ("et rebounded from the prior "ears of declineE

"5pandin& cities, shrinin& cities, sustainable cities challen&es, opportunities and e5amples

$JTJ% >J&S?J,2 '%$'&J %++

SH46%76% C66"S

$n 2002 the proCect NShrinking #itiesN was launched, an international research initiative aiming at

anal"sing the phenomenon of declining population numbers observed in man" cities all over the world

(www!shrinkingcities!com! The proCect is financed b" the +ederal #ultural +oundation of >erman"

and is carried out in close cooperation with the Geip*ig >aller" of #ontemporar" 'rt, the auhaus

essau +oundation and the maga*ine achplus! +our interdisciplinar" teams are at the moment

anal"sing the urban regions of etroit (S', )anchester and Giverpool (?, $vanova (%ussia and

3alleBGeip*ig (>erman"! ut these are onl" four eamples of the large number of cities that are

shrinking worldwide! +igure 2 indicates, that we are looking at a new development of global

dimension!

The initiative NShrinking #itiesN intends to demonstrate that in man" cases the mechanisms that cause

a cit" to etend are outscored b" reverse trends of contraction! The reasons for cit" shrinking are
http://www.shrinkingcities.com/http://www.shrinkingcities.com/


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numerous! The initiative has alread" pinpointed deindustrialisation and post-socialism but man" more

factors appear to stimulate cit" shrinking +or instance, it has been observed that the fertilit" rate has

been dropping significantl", a phenomenon which is again linked to urbanisation and which has been

confirmed in both high-income countries and low-income countries!

The global mean fertilit" rate has been dropping from 5!. in /0 to 2! in 2000! $n order to stabili*e

the population of a countr" against war, famine, epidemic and disaster a birth rate of some 2! children

is needed! 'lthough this trend appears health" from the perspective of halting overpopulation, the

number of people, although declining, still appears alarming! earing in mind the limited resources,

socio-environmental crises ma" emerge, which could soon degenerate towards political conflicts and

conse8uentl" lead to regional catastrophes, with all their conse8uences including war and refugee

streams, which again change demographics and degrade land (>enske F 3ess-Gttich 2000!

8orpaca&e 1 Specification of -orin& model, $ieter 4in, nne&ret Haase, atthias Bernt,

*eip+i&, Helmholt+ Centre for "n#ironmental 4esearch, September 2009

'lread" throughout the whole 20th centur" up to the present da", urban shrinkage has become normal

for man" (large, medium-si*ed and small cities in Jurope! %ecent studies have provided evidence for

the fact that about .0 per cent of all Juropean cities 200,000 inhabitants have lost population in a

short-, medium- or long-term period for different reasons (Turok and )"khnenko 200/! rbanshrinkage has become the focus of international research and debate, not least because of cross-

national proCects (Shrinking #ities, 2002-2004 or the establishment of scholarl" networks (e!g! the

erkele" network!

Ihen looking at the term urban shrinkage itself, it 8uickl" becomes obvious that it is difficult to

define because it has no widel" accepted definition and there are also man" overlaps with other terms

such as urban decline, urban deca" or urban blight (#lark 4R #ouch et al! 2005R radbur" et al!

42R >ilman 200 that were coined or that entered the debate earlier (>roUmann et al! 2004a, 45-

4/! +or this reason, and the evidence of the rising importance and acceptance of the term urban

shrinkage within an international framework, it is vital to elaborate a concept that draws on cross-

national empirical evidence and includes various national debates! This is what the S3%$&? S)'%T

proCect will endeavour to do, at least on the Juropean level and will include seven different national

contets!


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Ho- shrina&e and local &o#ernance are interrelated across urban "urope

a comparati#e #ie-, ieter %ink, 'nnegret 3aase, ?atrin >roUmann, )atthias ernt, #hris

#ouch, )atthew #ocks, 'lberto Diolante, #aterina #ortese,

shrinking cities2

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