Shrinking Cities – a growing urban-planning challenge

Here’s a map that reveals a side of Germany you hardly ever hear about: shrinking cities – and there are a lot of them.

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It’s part of article in The Economist – “Rus in urbe redux” – linked by Sandy James.

From 1950 to 1955 only ten of the world’s largest conurbations lost people, according to the UN (see chart). The tally rose steadily over the next few decades, before jumping in the 1990s, as the collapse of communism in eastern Europe and Russia was followed by a colossal migration.

Today just over 100 conurbations are losing people. But this greatly understates the scale of urban decline. In many countries, big cities with diversified economies are growing at the expense of cities too small to make the UN’s list. Germany has 107 autonomous cities, of which 60 are expected to contract over the next five years. But almost all of the biggest cities will escape decline (see map).

Full article here.