CityReads│Shrinking cities: why cities die
Cristina Martinez-Fernandez, Ivonne Audirac, Sylvie Fol and Emmanuèle Cunningham-Sabot, Shrinking cities: urban challenges of globalization, 2012. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research,36(2): 213–25. Thorsten Wiechmann and Karina M. Pallagst,2012. Urban shrinkage in Germany and the USA: A Comparison of Transformation Patterns and Local Strategies, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research,36(2): 261–280. Source: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2011.01092.x/abstract Source:http://pingmag.jp/2007/01/26/shrinking-cities/
The phenomenon of cities growing slowly or declining is found on every continent and can be described as a significant international politico-economic and planning issue. Indeed, when cities shrink, they share common elements in what can be characterized as a ‘shrinkage identity’. A ‘shrinking city’ can be defined as an urban area — a city, part of a city, an entire metropolitan area or a town — that has experienced population loss, economic downturn, employment decline and social problems as symptoms of a structural crisis. The term ‘urban shrinkage’ is used to stress the fact that this phenomenon is a multidimensional process with multidimensional effects and having economic, demographic, geographic, social and physical dimensions that not only continue to evolve as a result of new global and local realities, but also influence theories and research proffering diagnosis, prognosis and remedies. The term expands our understanding of ‘decline’ beyond the simple linear process that is generally understood to follow deindustrialization.
In this symposium we argue that globalization of the economy, global financial flows and the internationalization of production processes are powerful underlying causes of shrinkage in numerous industrial cities that have been unable to find a niche in the current competitive international economic environment. Population change in cities today is one of the symptoms of globalization. On the one hand, globalization stimulates the mobility of people across countries and regions, with some communities being at the sending end (resulting in shrinkage of their population), while other areas experience net gains (e.g. capital cities and regional centres). On the other hand, communities and indeed entire countries, Japan or Germany for example, that have low fertility rates are rapidly ageing, a process that often combines with young people moving out, accelerating shrinkage. These multiple facets of urban shrinkage call for a critical deconstruction of the term and a multidimensional reconstruction that accounts for all the key manifestations.
The vigorous debate on shrinking cities that originated in Germany and in North America had already stressed the need for a paradigm shift from traditional theories of urban growth and change to other ways of planning for urban life that would focus on quality of space and slower and smarter growth. In this symposium we argue that the urban growth model is no longer valid for the sustainable development of cities and regions, and that the planning discipline in particular needs to refocus the way that the instruments and mechanisms of city development are applied, so as to take into account the multiple dimensions of urban shrinkage and the related urban regeneration strategies derived from planning practice.
In this introduction, we first review theories of urban change and literature on the causes of urban shrinkage in different contexts. Second, we analyze urban shrinkage as a spatial manifestation of globalization, and, third, we argue for widening the scope of the current urban planning paradigm focused on ‘growth’ to one that integrates ‘growth and decline’ as simultaneous and interrelated urban processes.
Urban shrinkage is not a new phenomenon. The development and decline of cities and city centres have, since the Chicago School of urban sociology, been viewed as a natural process whereby urban change results from a lifecycle that ends in inevitable decline. At the scale of urban quarters or districts, Hoyt (1939) developed a cyclic approach to urban change. In his study of the structure and growth of residential quarters in American cities, he concluded that residential urban areas undergo an inevitable evolution towards decline, linked to property devaluation resulting from the arrival of less prosperous populations (Lang, 2000). The evolution of regions and urban agglomerations is thus seen as following development cycles that include periods of rapid growth followed by periods of slower growth and decline. Each wave of regional and urban development is thus seen as being determined by the lifecycles of the industries that belong to it.
Urban shrinkage today cannot be understood without referring to American and German discourses. 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.
The terms used to refer to urban shrinkage have changed over time. In American urban history, the process has been described as ‘urban decline’, although a number of authors have used the terms ‘shrinking cities’ or ‘urban shrinkage’ to describe the urban decay and deterioration associated with the contraction of the population and economic base in older North Eastern cities. In Germany the term ‘schrumpfende Städte’ (shrinking cities) was introduced by Häußermann and Siebel (1988) as a metaphor to describe the decline in population and economic base experienced by German cities as a result of deindustrialization. I n Western Germany during the 1980s the debate on die schrumpfenden Städte was based on the realization that the combined effects of demographic trends and economic restructuring would result in a structural change in the development of cities. Instead of considering the decline of Western cities as a punctual and reversible phenomenon, both scholars and public actors started to see it as a structural and durable process. The städtische Schrumpfung process has now been widely described and analysed with respect to East German cities, which experienced brutal and dramatic depopulation and deindustrialization after 1989. Recently, the effects of the financial crisis have given birth to a new wave of media and political interest in ‘shrinking cities’, particularly in the US. Here the term ‘shrinking’ is not only used to describe the process by which cities lose population and employment, but also to define new strategies consisting in demolishing vacant buildings and ‘downsizing’ the city.
The examples from Germany and the US have demonstrated that shrinking cities can have many different attributes. This means that there are no generally applicable solutions for shrinking cities. While recent debates on ‘shrinking cities’ usually refer to two concurrent causative processes — population loss and economic decline — one ought to distinguish at least four types of city (see Figure):
The first type —urban growth poles— represents the traditional ideal of the growth-oriented planning paradigm. The other three types show some symptoms of decline or shrinkage. The counterpart to the urban growth poles are the downgrading areas where economic decline typically leads to out-migration and subsequently to population decrease. Many shrinking cities, including Schwedt, Pittsburgh and Youngstown, are of that type. Differentiating the economic and demographic dimensions enables two more types to be generated. On the one hand urban gravitation centres comprise a large number of cities, in particular in the developing world, that have a high level of immigration and/or high birth rates in spite of the poor state of the economy. On the other hand transition areas are characterized by economic recovery without increase in population. This applies, for example, to the recent history of Dresden.
Figure Matrix of urban growth and shrinkagewith respect to economics and demography
Source: WIECHMANN and PALLAGST,2012
Figure Percentage population change inGermany,2002-20
Source: WIECHMANN and PALLAGST,2012
In industrialized countries, globalization has been accompanied by deindustrialization and suburbanization. Today urban shrinkage, rather than being an exception or an aberration, could be analysed as a global and structural phenomenon . However, local actors tend to see urban decline as a sort of parenthesis, which should be as short-lived as possible with the firm belief that recovery is to be expected. It is worthwhile revisiting this assumption, so as to envisage urban shrinkage as a durable, structural component of urban development.
while urban decline has been interpreted as being a stage in a cyclic process of boom and bust, it would seem more appropriate to hypothesize that ‘shrinking cities’ are the spatial manifestation of a global process accompanying the establishment of a ‘new regime of accumulation’.This process is of such magnitude that it reaches beyond (or encompasses) cyclic explanations of growth and decline, since the entire production system is being restructured, generating particularly marked spatial effects.
According to Harvey (2000) firms engage in a ‘spatial fix’ to cope with profit crises by geographically relocating production units to lower-wage locations. This in large part explains the increasing occurrence of urban decline across the world, as well as the speed at which it is progressing. In the era of flexible accumulation, international outsourcing and lean production, footloose enterprises have abandoned obsolete industrial plants and infrastructure and deserted many urban places giving way to the post-industrial city whose economic basis is increasingly oriented towards services. However, in numerous territories traditionally dominated by industry, employment gains in the service sector have not been sufficient to compensate for the loss of industrial jobs.
The process of globalization leads to the development of a small number of ‘global cities’, which gather high-level financial and service activities, and information and communication networks. Conversely, globalization is also the cause of the decline of numerous industrial cities that have been unable to find a niche in the international economic competition for capital. Mining cities are a primary example of industrial change as a determinant of shrinkage. The article underscores the lack of innovation, knowledge connectivity activities and new skills development in the host mining city. It presents the shrinking mining city as chiefly disconnected from the sophisticated innovation systems found in mining corporations. The economic paradox of these cities and their dual innovation system contrasts with the usually strong community involvement among residents, who seek to preserve a sustainable development path for their cities. The cities analyzed — Mt Isa in Australia, Sudbury in Canada, Yubary in Japan(Known in its heyday as the capital of coal, Yubari has lost 90% of its population in 50 years.) and Cerro San Pedro in Mexico — exemplify the fortunes and misfortunes of what today can be labelled as ‘global shrinking mining cities’.
Skills, cultural, educational or other spatial mismatches or deficiencies among residents of shrinking places are not the root of the problem. Rather, speculative circulation of capital in the built environment, such as predatory mortgage lending and its securitization in global financial markets, is largely to blame.
While global cities in the developed world are the command and control centres of the global economy, constellations of globally networked cities from both developed and developing countries have emerged interlaced in global production chains organized by multinational corporation. In this global system, cities are susceptible to a new form of temporary or permanent decline depending on the restructuring of global networks in specific industries (i.e. electronics, automobiles, banking, etc.). Sidestepped by global networks, shrinking cities find themselves metaphorically speaking ‘unplugged’ from international engines of growth. We are seeing growing inequalities between cities and regions that are integrated into global networks and those that are not. Innovation and knowledge economies are simultaneously local development engines and nodes in globally networked agglomerations, whose future is more than ever influenced by the strategies of multinational corporations. Thus, while certain spaces become attractive to investment and to the most qualified workers, others lose their economic base, their jobs and thereby their population.
Planning paradigms have long focused on urban growth while governance has consistently relied on cities as ‘growth machines’ . Although some cities are happy to remain small (e.g. Oxford in the UK; Salamanca in Spain) a certain stigma is attached to industrial cities that are growing slowly or declining after losing their former glory. This perception of ‘place’ influences local policymakers to think of alternative economic development paths for their cities, towns or regions. Urban planning and regeneration strategies vary from attracting investment, radical revitalization of the housing market, modifying infrastructure and revitalizing city centres through greening the space. These strategies have had mixed success.
While many cities focus on stemming decline through incentives and investments, others are moving away from trying to regain lost fortunes and focus on reducing the city’s footprint. Policy attention has also been devoted to addressing the problem of housing stock, as housing vacancy and abandonment are common in shrinking cities. Several cities(especially in Eastern Europe) have tried to revitalize the housing market via demolition of derelict housing stock, providing in its place open spaces and recreational areas under the assumption that the improved environment will allow the city to recover its vitality and attract population. However, these measures mostly cure symptoms, not causes.
Local institutions and development agencies are also facing the effects of shrinkage in urban infrastructure. As operating costs increase in shrinking cities and fiscal bases are reduced, certain effects become evident: infrastructure maintenance is deferred; a reduction in population density makes municipal services more expensive; there is a reduction of social and retail activity; there is a lack of social energy and dynamism; people’s sense of safety is reduced; urban fabric is lost and disjointed urban areas appear amid ‘wild zones’ beset by illegal activity and vandalism.
There is another silent but forceful process in shrinking cities: the disappearance of skills, knowledge and innovation as those more able leave for more prosperous cities. The loss of skills and talent can rapidly affect local innovation systems, disconnecting them from mainstream globalization, and can hit small and medium enterprises (SMEs) especially hard since they are so dependent on the availability of skilled workers for survival.
The planning discipline has dealt with urban decline for many years and the literature prolifically draws lessons from the experience gained from old-industrialized US and UK cities as well as from the most recent Eastern German experience. However, when it comes to the analysis and impact of different planning strategies and policy initiatives in shrinking cities the evidence is scarce. The collection of articles in this symposium aims to provide some clarity on these issues and, at the same time, attempts to contest the main paradigm of urban growth from which modern planning stems. A paradigm shift in urban planning focused on growth to one that includes limited growth or shrinkage might be necessary to tackle what is becoming a global phenomenon both in North and South economies.