Resilience to Urban Shrinkage in Riga

Riga has suffered a population loss of more than 29% between 1990 and 2014 which has led to increasing number of abandoned and degraded buildings in the city and optimization of the network of educational and cultural institutions. These trends are characteristics of urban shrinkage – a complex process affecting Riga for more than two decades and resulting in a pattern of growing, shrinking, and stable districts. A similar pattern has also been identified in other shrinking cities in Europe, but it has not been researched in more detail. In the given context, this research aims to narrow the knowledge gap on processes occurring in shrinking cities and to provide some understanding of the determinants of these processes on the city and local level through analysis of single embedded case study of Riga. To achieve this aim, resilience is used as an analytical concept. It allows to conceptualize urban shrinkage as a slow-burn (slowly occurring disturbance) and propose three possible responses - adaptation, transformation, and decline. These responses emerge from actions of actors on various spatial scales and lead to different outcomes. It also provides the basis for analyzing the determinants of these responses by conceptualizing them as sources of resilience and suggesting seven different aspects found in literature: leadership, networks, resources, learning, people-place connection, common cause, and system of institutions and governance. Finally, these theoretical assumptions are used to define two main research questions: (1) what are responses to urban shrinkage in Riga? (2) what are sources of resilience to urban shrinkage in Riga? The need for in-depth research of urban processes led to choosing mixed method strategy for both selecting the embedded units of analysis (districts) in Riga and finding answers to the proposed research questions. Based on combined results of secondary data analysis, controlled expert group discussion, and structured site visits, five