Shrinking cities
A shrinking city is one that loses population steadily —through deindustrialisation, emigration or ageing— and is left with more homes, streets and services than it can sustain. Detroit, Leipzig or much of inland Spain are the reverse of the growth planning usually takes for granted.
Shrinkage forces planning in reverse: demolishing, consolidating, returning vacant land to nature and keeping services running for fewer people. Robert Beauregard studied how urban decline is narrated and denied before it is managed. The lesson is that growth is not the only normal condition of a city.
Videos on this term (2)
- Shrinking cities
Robert Beauregard: Urban Decline and Postindustrial Cities
Robert Beauregard explains in Voices of Decline how the decline of Detroit, Cleveland or St. Louis was at once fact…
Robert Beauregard 3 min read - Shrinking cities
Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff
Charlie LeDuff narrates in Detroit: An American Autopsy the collapse of the Motor City: relocation, white flight,…
3 min read
