Dieter Rink

Decline and sprawl: an evolving type of urban development – observed in Liverpool and Leipzig1

Much of the empirical research on urban sprawl has been carried out in North America and most theoretical studies on this problem have been concerned with expanding urban areas. This study differs, firstly in that it is concerned with sprawl in two European cities, Liverpool in England and Leipzig in Germany, and secondly because both these cities are in decline. This presents an opportunity to explore whether the process of urban sprawl is somehow specific in a situation of urban decline and what its outcomes might be for both urban form and urban policy.

Looking beyond superficial knowledge gaps: Understanding public representations of biodiversity

Lack of public support for, and protest against, biodiversity management measures have often been explained by the apparently inadequate knowledge of biodiversity in the general public. In stark contrast to this assumption of public ignorance, our results from focus group discussions in The Netherlands, Germany and Scotland show that members of the general public use very rich and complex social representations of biodiversity to argue for particular approaches to biodiversity management. Within these representations, we identified important components, such as (i) the functions and benefits associated with biodiversity, (ii) attributes and values connected to nature, and (iii) views on the relationships between humans and nature. Notions within these components varied across individuals and groups and were closely linked to their views on biodiversity management in general and specific management measures in particular. This study illustrates how a better understanding of these representations and their links to public attitudes is crucial to ensure effective communication on biodiversity and to improve public support for biodiversity management.

Varieties of shrinkage in European cities

The issue of urban shrinkage has become the new ‘normal’ across Europe: a large number of urban areas find themselves amongst the cities losing population. According to recent studies, almost 42 per cent of all large European cities are currently shrinking. In eastern Europe, shrinking cities have formed the overwhelming majority – here, three out of four cities report a decrease in population. Shrinkage has proved to be a very diverse and complex phenomenon. In our understanding, a considerable and constant loss of population by an urban area classifies it as a shrinking city. So, while the indicator of shrinkage used here is rather simple, the nature of the process and its causes and consequences for the affected urban areas are multifaceted and need to be explained and understood in further detail. Set against this background, the article presents, first, urban shrinkage as both spatially and temporally uneven. Second, this article shows that the causes of urban shrinkage are as varied as they are numerous. We explore the ‘pluralist world of urban shrinkage’ in the European Union and beyond. The article provides an original process model of urban shrinkage, bringing together its causes, impacts and dynamics, and setting them in the context of locally based urban trajectories. The main argument of this arrticle is that there is no ‘grand explanatory heuristics’ of shrinkage; a ‘one-size-fits-all’ explanatory approach to shrinkage cannot deliver. To progress and remain relevant, one ought to move away from outcome-orientated towards process-orientated research on urban shrinkage.

Actors and factors in land-use simulation: The challenge of urban shrinkage

Both modelers and social scientists attempt to find better explanations of complex urban systems. They include development paths, underlying driving forces and their expected impacts. So far, land-use research has predominantly focused on urban growth. However, new challenges have arisen since urban shrinkage entered the research agenda of the social and land-use sciences. Therefore, the focus of this paper is a twofold one: Using the example of urban shrinkage, we first discuss the capacity of existing land-use modeling approaches to integrate new social science knowledge in terms of land-use, demography and governance because social science models are indispensable for accurately explaining the processes behind shrinkage. Second, we discuss the combination of system dynamics (SD), cellular automata (CA) and agent-based model (ABM) approaches to cover the main characteristics, processes and patterns of urban shrinkage. Using Leipzig, Germany, as a case study, we provide the initial results of a joint SD-CA model and an ABM that both operationalize social science knowledge regarding urban shrinkage.

Conceptualizing urban shrinkage

Since the second half of the 20th century, urban shrinkage has become a common pathway of transformation for many large cities across the globe. Although the appearance of shrinkage is fairly universal—typically manifested in dwindling population, emerging vacant spaces, and the underuse of existing urban infrastructure, ranging from schools and parks to water pipelines—its essence is hidden from view. Phenomena related to shrinkage have been discussed predominantly using terms such as decline, decay, blight, abandonment, disurbanization, urban crisis, and demographic change. Amongst others, these concepts were typically related to specific national contexts, installed in distinct explanatory frameworks, based around diverging normative accounts, ultimately leading to very different policy implications. Yet there is still a lack of conceptualization and integration of shrinkage into the wider theoretical debates in human geography, town and country planning, urban and regional studies, and social sciences at large. The problem here is not only to explain how shrinkage comes about, but also to study shrinkage as a process: simultaneously as a presupposition, a medium, and an outcome of continually changing social relationships. If we wish to understand shrinkage in a specific location, we need to integrate theoretical explanations with historical trajectories, as well as to combine these with a study of the specific impacts caused by shrinkage and to analyse the policy environment in which these processes take place. The authors apply an integrative model which maps the entire process across different contexts and independently of local or national specifics; it covers causes, impacts, responses, and feedback loops, and the interrelations between these aspects. The model does not ‘explain’ shrinkage in every case: instead, it builds a framework into which place-specific and time-specific explanations can be embedded. It is thus a heuristics that enables communication, if not comparison, across different contexts. With the help of this model, the authors hope to find a way in which shrinkage can be studied both in a conceptually rigorous and in an historically specific way. Instead of an invariant ‘process of shrinkage’, they portray a ‘pluralist world of shrinkages’.

The governance of urban shrinkage in cities of post-socialist Europe: policies, strategies and actors

This paper presents results of an international comparative research project ‘Smart governance of shrinking cities in a European context’. In recent years, many European cities have experienced urban shrinkage (population decline). Whereas there has been a wealth of research into the governance of growing cities, little consideration has been given to the governance of and policy responses to shrinking cities, particularly in relation to the declining cities of post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe. The aim of this paper is to compare the governance responses to shrinkage in different national contexts and assess the policy responses applied. This is done through the comparison of case studies examining the governance of shrinkage in Leipzig (Germany), Bytom (Poland), Ostrava (Czechia) and Timisoara (Romania). Two different strategies have been identified. First, Leipzig – due to its inclusion in the (former Western) German welfare state – followed a reasonably holistic strategy implemented by strong public actors focused not only on economic growth, but also on tackling issues of falling housing demand and the need to strengthen the attractivity of city centre. Second, in Ostrava, Bytom and Timisoara strategies have been inspired by neoliberal thinking, denying the important role of public sector city planning and ignoring the fact of shrinkage. In these cities, the main reply to shrinkage has been to seek economic development through the attraction of private investment (especially FDI) into the cities and using pragmatically any EU structural funding.

Urban shrinkage as an emerging concern for European policymaking

Across Europe, urban shrinkage has become an important phenomenon. According to recent studies, almost 42 % of all large European cities are currently shrinking, the largest number of them being situated in Eastern Europe. Across Europe, shrinkage affects all types of regions; in a way, Europe has become a shrinking continent. Shrinkage is not only a problem of larger cities, but has, in fact, become one of several pathways for European urban and rural development. Given the context that the European Commission’s ambition is to create prosperous, attractive and sustainable cities, they are expected to create equilibrium between population and employment opportunities, provide clean, safe, sustainable environments and avoid social exclusion. Set against this background, the commentary discusses the challenge that urban shrinkage brings about for European policymaking. It addresses especially issues of urban governance and planning. It draws on recent research on shrinking cities across the European territory. It argues that, on the European level, knowledge about shrinking cities is required; hence, the European Commission should encourage networks of researchers and support mutual exchange between research and urban practice. It argues, too, that there is a great deal of expertise available in some European cities about how to cope with shrinkage and there are other places, throughout Europe, that are in urgent need of this expertise. It finally advocates a stronger voice for the vision of the sustainable, shrinking or shrunk city as a priority of current and future urban policy of the EU.

The influence of housing oversupply on residential segregation: exploring the post-socialist city of Leipzig†

In this article, we contribute to a better understanding of contextual differences related to residential segregation. We illuminate one specific contextual factor—housing oversupply—and how it intersects with historically inherited patterns of socio-spatial differentiation and other drivers of residential segregation. The study is based on an analysis of how segregation has developed over the last 20 years in the city of Leipzig, Germany. This case offers the rare possibility of studying the impact of city-wide housing oversupply on residential segregation, rather than concentrating on decline or decay in specific areas. We examine how oversupply emerged at the meeting point of changes in market structures, housing preferences, welfare state interventions, and migration trends in the post-socialist transition. Using existing statistical data, we demonstrate how oversupply has fostered a fast and thorough reshuffling of residential patterns. After a period of resolving segregation patterns from the socialist era, oversupply acts as a catalyst for recently emerging residential segregation patterns.

Shrinking Cities in Post-Socialist Europe: What Can We Learn From Their Analysis for Theory Building Today?

Abstract In the final decades of the twentieth century, the post-industrial regions of western Europe and the US were hot-spots of urban shrinkage, and this also affected large areas in post-socialist countries. Despite ongoing calls for a better integration of diverse global urban experiences into theorization, post-socialist cities and their trajectories, as well as their experiences with rapid urban change, have been largely disregarded in general theory development. At the same time, we face a somewhat inconsistent situation in the theoretical discourse on urban development. There are requests for “new geographies of theory” or to regard all cities as “ordinary”, in order to include different types of narratives and experience into overall comparisons and/or theory building. Set against this background, this paper aims to deal with the case of shrinking post-socialist cities, that is, cities that are “excluded” from hegemonic discourses for two reasons: they are post-socialist and they are shrinking. In contrast to this situation, we understand shrinking post-socialist cities as valuable examples for strengthening the debate on current and future forms of, and determining factors for, general urbanization. At the focus of our paper, therefore, are the questions about what we can learn from the analysis of shrinking post-socialist cities for the general discourse, as well as for theory building for cities, and how we can overcome the observed reluctance to integrate the post-socialist experience into general theory development. The paper draws on an EU 7 FP research project finished in 2012 that comparatively analysed urban shrinkage across several regions of Europe, with a particular focus on post-socialist countries.

Milieukonzepte zwischen Sozialstrukturanalyse und Lebensstilforschung. Eine Problematisierung

In der westdeutschen sozialwissenschaftlichen Diskussion wird in den letzten Jahren — nicht erst seit Bourdieu, aber verstarkt durch seine Arbeiten — die Diskussion zum Zusammenhang zwischen Sozialstruktur und Lebensstilen gefuhrt (siehe dazu ausfuhrlich: Muller 1992, S. 19 ff.).