Search

In many regions with long-term structural economic and demographic problems, small towns are shrinking as their urban centres, they are losing population, jobs, vibrancy and infrastructure. Yet, knowledge about their trajectories remains vague as studies on urban shrinkage have so far focused on large cities. When monitoring population change of small towns in Germany, there are ambiguous findings concerning their recent development: On the one hand, natural and migration balances were mostly negative and the population is ageing. On the other, they have become target locations of old-age in-migration. Hidden behind general demographic decline, the towns' elderly populations are growing in relative and absolute terms. Our paper wants to shed light on these processes. It draws upon explorative empirical research in small towns in Germany. We will present, firstly, elderly's motivations and actual relocation decisions. Secondly, we will show that these trends remain even largely out of sight of municipal decision makers. By way of conclusion, we argue that urban shrinkage is not a linear but rather a contingent process where overlapping trends, agencies and decisions of various actors together with the more fine-grained unevenness of spatial development can result in unexpected and ambivalent local trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary cities in East Central Europe (ECE) represent a hybrid type of urban development which is still generally considered to be a special case and is only exceptionally referred to in the recently intensified debate over the European city. Our paper argues that such exclusion is short-sighted because ECE cities face structural problems similar to those of their Western pendants. Therefore, the contextual frame of urban research needs to be widened and can no longer be restricted to post-socialist transition. In this regard, one of the main challenges for future urban development will be the consequences of demographic change. Ageing, new patterns of fertility behaviour and more diversified household structures in line with the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) will have significant implications for urban structures and housing markets, as already known for Western Europe. The purpose of this paper is to work out new questions and hypotheses for future urban research with special respect to Polish and Czech cities. Besides West European experience, recent developments in eastern Germany are taken as a frame of reference, assuming that this specific transition case may, in many respects, be regarded as a forerunner for similar developments in its neighbouring countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]