Shrinking city


Shrinking cities or urban depopulation are dense cities that have experienced a notable population loss. Emigration is a common reason for city shrinkage. Since the infrastructure of such cities was built to support a larger population, its maintenance can become a serious concern. A related phenomenon is counterurbanization.

Definition

Origins

The phenomenon of shrinking cities generally refers to a metropolitan area that experiences significant population loss in a short period of time. The process is also known as counterurbanization, metropolitan deconcentration, and metropolitan turnaround. It was popularized in reference to Eastern Europe post-socialism, when old industrial regions came under Western privatization and capitalism. Shrinking cities in the United States, on the other hand, have been forming since 2006 in dense urban centers while external suburban areas continue to grow. Suburbanization in tandem with deindustrialization, human migration, and the 2008 Great Recession all contribute to origins of shrinking cities in the U.S. Scholars estimate that one in six to one in four cities worldwide are shrinking in countries with expanding economies and those with deindustrialization. However, there are some issues with the concept of shrinking cities, as it seeks to group together areas that undergo depopulation for a variety of complex reasons. These may include an aging population, shifting industries, intentional shrinkage to improve quality of life, or a transitional phase, all of which require different responses and plans.

Causes

There are various theoretical explanations for the shrinking city phenomenon. Hollander et al. and Glazer cite railroads in port cities, the depreciation of national infrastructure, and suburbanization as possible causes of de-urbanization. Pallagst also suggests that shrinkage is a response to deindustrialization, as jobs move from the city core to cheaper land on the periphery. This case has been observed in Detroit, where employment opportunities in the automobile industry were moved to the suburbs because of room for expansion and cheaper acreage. Bontje proposes three factors contributing to urban shrinkage, followed by one suggested by Hollander:
  1. Urban development model: Based on the Fordist model of industrialization, it suggests that urbanization is a cyclical process and that urban and regional decline will eventually allow for increased growth
  2. One company town/monostructure model: Cities that focus too much on one branch of economic growth make themselves vulnerable to rapid declines, such as the case with the automobile industry in Flint.
  3. Shock therapy model: Especially in Eastern Europe post-socialism, state-owned companies did not survive privatization, leading to plant closures and massive unemployment.
  4. Smart decline: City planners have utilized this term and inadvertently encouraged decline by "planning for less—fewer people, fewer buildings, fewer land uses." It is a development method focused on improving the quality of life for current residents without taking those residents' needs into account, thus pushing more people out of the city core.

    Effects

Economic

The shrinking of urban populations indicates a changing of economic and planning conditions of a city. Cities begin to 'shrink' from economic decline, usually resulting from war, debt, or lack of production and work force. Population decline affects a large number of communities, both communities that are far removed from and deep within large urban centers. These communities usually consist of native people and long-term residents, so the initial population is not large. The outflow of people is then detrimental to the production potential and quality of life in these regions, and a decline in employment and productivity ensues.

Social and infrastructural

Shrinking cities experience dramatic social changes due to fertility decline, changes in life expectancy, population aging, and household structure. Another reason for this shift is job-driven migration. This causes different household demands, posing a challenge to the urban housing market and the development of new land or urban planning. A decline in population does not inspire confidence in a city, and often deteriorates municipal morale. Coupled with a weak economy, the city and its infrastructure begin to deteriorate from lack of upkeep from citizens.

Political

Historically, shrinking cities have been a taboo topic in politics. Representatives ignored the problem and refused to deal with it, leading many to believe it was not a real problem. Today, urban shrinkage is an acknowledged issue, with many urban planning firms working together to strategize how to combat the implications that affect all dimensions of daily life.

International perspectives

Regions in Europe and Central Asia − including East Germany as well as the former Yugoslavian and Soviet republics − have suffered from population decline and deindustrialization in the 1990s as they were significantly affected by their weak economic situation after the fall of socialism.
East German cities like Halle and Cottbus, for example, experienced a drastic population decline as many people emigrated to western cities like Berlin. Hamburg in particular experienced a population boom with record production yields in 1991, after the unification of Germany. Conversely, cities in the area of the former GDR suffered from a failing economy and a neglected infrastructure. Many of these cities were built to support a much larger population. By the turn of the millennium, this trend was reversed for the bigger cities in East Germany; especially Leipzig and Dresden started growing again. However, this happens largely at the expense of many smaller cities and rural areas in East Germany which are still facing shrinking and aging population numbers in 2025.

Theories

The observable demographic out-migration and disinvestment of capital from many industrial cities across the globe following World War II prompted an academic investigation into the causes of shrinking cities, or urban decline. Serious issues of justice, racism, economic and health disparity, as well as inequitable power relations, are consequences of the shrinking cities phenomenon. The question is, what causes urban decline and why? While theories do vary, three main categories of influence are widely attributed to urban decline: deindustrialization, globalization, and suburbanization.

Deindustrialization

One theory of shrinking cities is deindustrialization or, the process of disinvestment from industrial urban centers. This theory of shrinking cities is mainly focused on post-World War II Europe as manufacturing declined in Western Europe and increased in the United States, causing a shift of global economic power to the United States. The result was that Western European industrialization largely ceased, and alternative industries arose. This economic shift is clearly seen through the United Kingdom's rise of a service sector economy. With the decline in industry, many jobs were lost or outsourced, resulting in urban decline and massive demographic movement from former industrial urban centers into suburban and rural locales.

Post-World War II politics

Rapid privatization incentives encouraged under the United States-sponsored post-World War II economic aid policies such as the Marshall Plan and Lend-Lease program, motivated free-market, capitalist approaches to governance across the Western European economic landscape. The result of these privatization schemes was a movement of capital into American manufacturing and financial markets and out of Western European industrial centers. American loans were also used as political currency contingent upon global investment schemes meant to stifle economic development within the Soviet-allied Eastern Bloc. With extensive debt tying capitalist Europe to the United States and financial blockades inhibiting full development of the communist Eastern half, this Cold War economic power structure greatly contributed to European urban decline.

The case of Great Britain

, widely considered the first nation to fully industrialize, is often used as a case study in support of the theory of deindustrialization and urban decline. Political economists often point to the Cold War era as the moment when a monumental shift in global economic power structures occurred. The former "Great Empire" of the United Kingdom was built from industry, trade and financial dominion. This control was, however, effectively lost to the United States under such programs as the Lend-Lease and Marshall Plan. As the global financial market moved from London to New York City, so too did the influence of capital and investment.
With the initial decades following World War II dedicated to rebuilding or, readjusting the economic, political and cultural role of Britain within the new world order, it was not until the 1960s and 1970s that major concerns over urban decline emerged. With industry moving out of Western Europe and into the United States, rapid depopulation of cities and movement into rural areas occurred in Great Britain. Deindustrialization was advanced further under the Thatcherite privatization policies of the 1980s. Privatization of industry took away all remaining state protection of manufacturing. With industry now under private ownership, "free-market" incentives pushed further movement of manufacturing out of the United Kingdom.
Under Prime Minister Tony Blair, the United Kingdom effectively tried to revamp depopulated and unemployed cities through the enlargement of service sector industry. This shift from manufacturing to services did not, however, reverse the trend of urban decline observed beginning in 1966, with the exception of London.