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Shrinking Cities

Dernière mise à jour le 6 September 2019

Over the last fifty years, some 370 cities of more than 100,000 inhabitants have registered population losses as great as 10%. An extreme example is the Iranian city of Âbâdân, which has lost 90% of its population.

The website shrinkingcities.com notes that the number of declining cities has risen more rapidly than that of the number of growing cities. This phenomenon is evident in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany, as well as Russia, Ukraine, Japan, China, South Africa, and so on.

The reason cities shrink are varied. They include: deindustrialization, immigration, the aging of the population, low birth rates, natural catastrophe, war, and so on.

According to Emmanuelle Anizon, this decline raises new questions:

  • How does one manage a shrinking city?
  • How can a city be “re-densified”? How can new infrastructures be invented for an “oversized” city?
  • How can people who are so spread out be connected to one another?
  • How does one provide security for empty buildings and deserted neighborhoods?

Source: Article from “La Fabrique de la Cité”.

Further reading:

File translated by Michael C. Behrent – Assistant Professor – Department of History – Appalachian State University – Boone, NC  28608