Urban shrinkage in Germany and the USA: A Comparison of Transformation Patterns and Local Strategies

Abstract

Many American and European cities have to deal with demographic and economic trajectories leading to urban shrinkage. According to official data, 13% of urban regions in the US and 54% of those in the EU have lost population in recent years. However, the extent and spatial distribution of declining populations differ significantly between Europe and the US. In Germany, the situation is driven by falling birth rates and the effects of German reunification. In the US, shrinkage is basically related to long-term industrial transformation. But the challenges of shrinking cities seldom appeared on the agendas of politicians and urban planners until recently. This article provides a critical overview of the development paths and local strategies of four shrinking cities: Schwedt and Dresden in eastern Germany; Youngstown and Pittsburgh in the US. A typology of urban growth and shrinkage, from economic and demographic perspectives, enables four types of city to be differentiated and the differences between the US and eastern Germany to be discussed. The article suggests that a new transatlantic debate on policy and planning strategies for restructuring shrinking cities is needed to overcome the dominant growth orientation that in most cases intensifies the negative consequences of shrinkage.

Shrinking communities in Japan: Community ownership of assets as a development potential for rural Japan?

“…Moreover, it occurs particularly in affluent, developed countries in the Western world. It comes as no surprise, then, that the current literature on the causes and consequences of urban shrinkage as well as policy responses is mostly concentrated on cities in Europe and the United States (see, for example, Bucher and Mai, 2005;Ferry and Vironen, 2011;Pallagst et al, 2009;Pedroni, 2011;Wiechmann and Pallagst, 2012). Most recently, Pallagst et al (2012) addressed shrinking cities from a global perspective by presenting a number of case studies from around the world, considering specific economic, social, environmental, cultural and land-use issues.…”

The New Ecology of Vacancy: Rethinking Land Use in Shrinking Cities

“…It suggests that vacancy is not a ubiquitous condition. This variation is further supported by Wiechmann and Pallagst in their assessment different types of shrinking cities in the USA and Germany [16]. Because many of these city-specific vacant aggregations contain large quantities of biomass, surface area, infrastructural integration, biodiversity and nutrient cycling, these areas could be seen as an unprecedented opportunity to harness ecosystem services within the urban environment.…”

An introductory review to the special issue: Shrinking cities and towns: Challenge and responses

“…It can occur at large scalesCyprus is an example, at the metropolitan level (Hanlon, 2009) and at scales smaller than that. Occasionally, the shrinkage can be sudden and drastic as we saw in New Orleans, resulting in a different physical outcome (Ehrenfuecht and Nelson, 2012) Growing and shrinking neighborhoods within a city, often abutting or in close proximity to each other, can produce a perforated urban fabric in cities ranging from Dresden to Houston (Beeck, 2011;Wiechmann and Pallagst, 2012; Longoria and Rogers, Exodus within an Expanding city in this issue), producing another set of challenges for planners and others working at the local level.…”