Authors:Christian Lamker, Thomas Terfrüchte Abstract: Governments have developed, agreed, and often embraced ambitious targets to meet sustainability and climate change demands. The use of land is foundational for long-term success and one of the most crucial resources where absolute limits of development become tangible. In Europe, success in stopping the expansion of settlement uses through building on natural or agricultural land remains limited in scope and speed. While planning instruments could be open for versatile uses, a pro-growth pathway continues at all planning scales. The premise of this article is that growth fixation is inscribed in planning instruments. We build on post-growth planning literature to conceptualize the relevance of (post-)growth for land-use planning. Two examples of planning instruments (modelling regional land use needs, density concepts) and their application in German case studies illustrate wherein growth has been locked and within which potentials for change lie. We investigate inscribed premises of the causal relation between population and household growth to land consumption that are leading to a divergence between the need for land and the provision of land. By doing so, we position post-growth planning to understand contemporary challenges in reducing the net consumption of land, and as a crucial body of thought that better accounts for the tangible limits of available land. PubDate: 2024-07-11 DOI: 10.17645/up.7881 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Joop de Kraker, Christian Scholl, Marco Bontje Abstract: Shrinking cities and degrowth thinking share their parting from the dominant growth paradigm and seem to have much to offer to each other. Could degrowth be an inspiring and guiding paradigm for the sustainable development of shrinking cities' Could shrinking cities be suitable testing grounds to apply degrowth’s radical sustainability principles in practice' These and other questions regarding the connections between urban shrinkage, degrowth, and sustainability have hardly been addressed in the scientific literature thus far. This thematic issue brings together novel empirical contributions, taking stock of first attempts to connect degrowth to urban shrinkage, exploring in how far this potential unfolds in practice and what obstacles these attempts face, with a focus on the field of urban planning. In this editorial, we discuss the connections between shrinking cities, degrowth, and sustainability identified in the empirical studies and the dialogues that span across these contributions. We conclude with an updated research agenda for this field of study. PubDate: 2024-07-11 DOI: 10.17645/up.8815 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Marco Bontje Abstract: The extent of shrinkage in the Netherlands is rather limited so far. Still, the Netherlands was one of the first European countries that introduced a national-level policy for regions facing structural population decline and shrinkage in 2009: the Population Decline Action Plan. This happened in response to local and regional policy initiatives and a lobby of local and regional governments, but also because the Minister of the Interior perceived shrinkage as a national policy challenge. This action plan was an attempt to arrange a multiscalar governance of shrinkage at national, regional, and local scales. However, this policy ended in 2019, and its last remaining element, a targeted subsidy for regions facing structural population decline, ended in 2022. This article will discuss (a) how and why the policy was introduced and how its governance was arranged, (b) how the policy changed between 2009 and 2022, (c) why it ended, (d) which new regional policies have been developed recently instead, and (e) what this could mean for the governance of shrinkage in the Netherlands. PubDate: 2024-05-28 DOI: 10.17645/up.7972 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Maurice Hermans, Joop de Kraker, Christian Scholl Abstract: To inform and operationalize an urban degrowth agenda, more systematic and larger-scale experimentation with degrowth practices is needed. The aim of this study was to explore the suitability of shrinking cities as testing grounds for urban degrowth practices. To answer this question, we analyzed two cases, both urban greening initiatives, located in the shrinking urban region of Parkstad Limburg, in the Netherlands. The cases show that in a shrinking city, with a large surplus of urban land and long-term vacancy and demolishing of buildings, there is literally abundant “room” to experiment with alternative ways and types of urban land use. There is also interest on the side of the local government in alternatives to the conventional approaches to urban planning and development. As both cases can be interpreted as “experiments with urban degrowth practices,” it can be concluded that shrinking cities offer ample opportunities for urban degrowth experiments. The lessons learned from the two studied cases are not very positive concerning the wider feasibility of the tested degrowth practices, but as experiments, the cases can be considered successful. This is because they provided a better understanding of the conditions required for the implementation and upscaling of these practices, also in growing cities. To inform and operationalize an urban degrowth agenda, we, therefore, recommend more research on cases in shrinking cities that can be interpreted and analyzed as experiments with urban degrowth practices. PubDate: 2024-05-22 DOI: 10.17645/up.8008 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Anton Brokow-Loga, Frank Eckardt Abstract: Spatial transformation follows the logic of a growth-oriented economy that values cities according to their place in the chain of capitalist wealth production. Many cities in East Germany have lost their significance as sites of production and are consequently facing population decline and the weakening of social bonds in the community. For this reason, citizens of the East German small town of Zella-Mehlis (state of Thuringia) have begun to reflect on alternative models for urban development. In this article, the process of arriving at a degrowth strategy, as provided by the academic discourse, will be documented. It will be demonstrated that the process of shrinkage has not only left little space for a degrowth planning approach put into practice. Moreover, the article reveals that the costs of the growth economy on society are not limited to population shrinkage, but also have a severe impact on the sociability of the local community. The rise of right-wing populists and climate change-denying actors mirrors the decreasing social ability for collective learning processes needed for a shift to a solidary degrowth strategy. However, the case study shows how ambivalent these developments are: Long-term participatory processes within the public–civic partnership framework of the Aufwind (German for upwind) initiative in Zella-Mehlis can challenge path dependencies and open new degrowth-inspired perspectives. The article is informed by many years of intensive field research in a qualitative mixed-method design and focuses on the close links between shrinkage processes, the local degrowth agenda, and the consequences of an eroding democracy. PubDate: 2024-05-15 DOI: 10.17645/up.7788 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Agim Kërçuku Abstract: This article explores three examples of urban design initiatives in Genoa in an attempt to highlight the potential and possible contradictions that controlled shrinking projects pose for the future of contemporary cities. Genoa, a symbol of Italian shrinking cities, has been strongly defined over the years by post-industrialisation transformations and by long-standing conditions of urban shrinkage. Despite facing continuous shrinkage, local urban development policies have historically focused exclusively on urban growth and expansion. Only recently have some areas in Genoa started to adopt spatial planning experiences that actively pursue degrowth policies, aiming to reduce existing urban fabric and decrease urban density. These initiatives are adopted in specific areas affected by demographic decline, hydrogeological risks, pollution, or catastrophic events. These spatial strategies justify their existence by invoking concepts like smart shrinkage and degrowth, promising improvements in both environmental and social conditions. However, this article notes how these concepts in Genoa are not aligned with the actual social and environmental challenges that these considerations and positions pose. In fact, the urban renewal initiatives introduced by institutions, in reality, lean towards a strategy of shrinkage and demolition of residential complexes, transportation infrastructure, and productive spaces, with diverse and conflicting results. The observed controlled shrinking projects neglect the synthesis of the territory as a palimpsest, ignore new ecological sensitivities, and lack awareness of the social implications associated with the concepts of smart shrinkage and degrowth. Instead, the three instances introduce a spatial project that still adheres to the underlying principles of growth and exploitation, presenting a shrinkage of the existing urban fabric that is mere illusion. It involves clearing out the deteriorated spaces only to fill them with capitalist rhetoric and models that, instead of creating space, undermine fundamental rights. Nonetheless, a closer examination of these three missed opportunities sheds light on the necessary knowledge, actions, and design approaches for a city to navigate urban shrinkage adeptly. This exploration also reveals the potential for the city to transform into a framework and platform, inspiring and guiding new urban planning paradigms for sustainable development. PubDate: 2024-05-10 DOI: 10.17645/up.7803 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Janne Oittinen, Raine Mäntysalo Abstract: The population of Finland will start to decline in the near future, and most Finnish municipalities are already losing population. Can the tools used for land-use planning, which are historically designed to guide and control growth, be used to guide shrinking' The shrinking city-region of Kotka-Hamina has drafted a city-regional strategic master plan to manage the shrinking. The master plan and its documents are analyzed, and interviews are used to better understand how the plan is trying to achieve its objectives. The master plan is currently growth-oriented and used as a tool for place marketing. According to the interviews, growth is not essential to implement the plan. As a tool, it strives to show the potential of the city-region. The master plan guides future land use to denser areas and enables industry. Learning from this case study, strategic land-use planning can be seen as a feasible tool to manage shrinking, and the master plan hints at how that might be done, although it does need improvement. Since land-use planning has country-specific characteristics, the research findings may not be directly transferable to other planning systems. However, the findings may offer ideas on how planning tools can be adapted to similarly challenging conditions. The possibility of what strategic spatial planning has to offer in a shrinking context should be researched more to enable the development of planning tools that would be more usable in shrinking conditions. PubDate: 2024-05-03 DOI: 10.17645/up.7694 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:António Ferreira, Kim C. von Schönfeld, Fanny Augis, Paulo Conceição Abstract: This research focuses on examining how the pursuit of economic growth can contribute to urban shrinkage. In contrast to the prevalent definition of urban shrinkage that links population loss to insufficient levels of economic growth, this study examines the case of Coimbra, Portugal, where something different is happening. We hypothesise that Coimbra experiences population loss due to urban policies that promote economic growth through housing speculation. We conclude that the hypothesis is valid using semi-structured interviews and document analysis as data collection methods. The identified phenomenon disproportionately affects younger and vulnerable residents, forcing them to relocate due to unaffordable housing options. However, it benefits the local authority and national government, which collaborate with global economic powers that invest in real estate to accumulate capital. The conformist and legalistic-bureaucratic nature of the Portuguese planning system, evident in Coimbra’s local authority, exacerbates the problem. We emphasise the potentially transformative impact of economic degrowth thinking on housing policy. The implications of this research question the validity of mainstream economic theory as commonly applied to urban planning. PubDate: 2024-04-24 DOI: 10.17645/up.7721 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
Authors:Marjan Marjanović, Marcelo Sagot Better, Nikola Lero, Zorica Nedović-Budić Abstract: Shrinking cities scholars claim that planning actors in the cities where shrinking is accepted are more likely to change the focus of planning strategy from pursuing growth to actively planning for de-growth. Considering this argument, this article investigates to what extent planning actors in shrinking cities seek solutions outside the dominant growth paradigm if they accept the reality of shrinkage. This is accomplished by examining the comprehensive plans of 18 shrinking cities in the Rust Belt area of the US and establishing relations between the interpretations of urban decline expressed in these planning documents and the resulting planning visions and strategies. The findings demonstrate that although planning actors in most analysed cases accepted urban shrinkage as a reality and adopted a vision of a smaller future city, they mainly devised strategies that facilitate growth. This suggests that urban planning may be far less impacted by specific interpretations of shrinkage, including acceptance, than what is popularly believed to be the case. Instead, growth remains a focal point of most planning efforts in shrinking cities, even when planning actors acknowledge it may not be realistically attainable. PubDate: 2024-03-05 DOI: 10.17645/up.6904 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 2 (2024)
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