Cities Regrowing Smaller (CIRES)

1 Background: Urban Shrinkage in Europe
Common causes of shrinkage include:
• suburbanization („hollowing out”, flight of people and jobs)
• economic restructuring (shift away from industrial-based economy)
• demographics and immigrant settlement patterns (low fertility rates;
tendency of immigrants to settle in larger, growing cities)
In the literature urban shrinkage has mainly been studied …
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in terms of life cycles
as the spatial manifestations of globalisation processes and growing
inequalities in the current knowledge-based economy
as an outcome of transformation processes in Eastern Europe
Research that has been conducted lacks a comparative perspective on the
factors and impacts of shrinkage at the European scale and on the policies
and strategies that were implemented.
Prof. Dr. Thorsten Wiechmann Cities Regrowing Smaller
21.04.2009
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