Shrinking Cities: Urban Challenges of Globalization

TLDR: The symposium includes articles from 10 urban analysts working on 30 cities around the globe whose collaborative work aims to understand different types of city shrinkage and the role that different approaches, policies and strategies have played in the regeneration of these cities.

Abstract: Urban shrinkage is not a new phenomenon. It has been documented in a large literature analyzing the social and economic issues that have led to population flight, resulting, in the worse cases, in the eventual abandonment of blocks of housing and neighbourhoods. Analysis of urban shrinkage should take into account the new realization that this phenomenon is now global and multidimensional — but also little understood in all its manifestations. Thus, as the world's population increasingly becomes urban, orthodox views of urban decline need redefinition. The symposium includes articles from 10 urban analysts working on 30 cities around the globe. These analysts belong to the Shrinking Cities International Research Network (SCIRN), whose collaborative work aims to understand different types of city shrinkage and the role that different approaches, policies and strategies have played in the regeneration of these cities. In this way the symposium will inform both a rich diversity of analytical perspectives and country-based studies of the challenges faced by shrinking cities. It will also disseminate SCIRN's research results from the last 3 years. Resume La decroissance urbaine n'est pas un phenomene nouveau. De nombreux travaux ont analyse les problemes sociaux et economiques conduisant au depart de populations et resultant dans les pires des cas a l'abandon d'ilots d'habitat et de quartiers entiers. Cependant, l'etude de la decroissance urbaine doit aujourd'hui tenir compte du constat recent selon lequel ce phenomene est desormais global et multidimensionnel, tout en restant peu apprehende dans toutes ses composantes. Ainsi, alors que la population mondiale est de plus en plus urbaine, les conceptions classiques du declin urbain meritent d'etre reexaminees. Ce symposium inclut des articles de dix chercheurs travaillant sur trente villes a travers le monde. Ils appartiennent au Shrinking Cities International Research Netwok (SCIRN), dont le travail collectif a pour objectif d'analyser differents types de decroissance urbaine et le role que les multiples approches, politiques et strategies ont joue dans la regeneration des villes touchees par ce processus. Ce numero s'appuie sur une diversite d'approches et sur l'etude de contextes urbains varies, ayant pour point commun d'etre concernes par les enjeux de la decroissance urbaine. Il permet de diffuser les resultats des recherches menees au sein du SCIRN au cours des trois dernieres annees.