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Shrinking cities in the United States of America
Presentation download (PDF)
International Symposium "Coping with City Shrinkage and Demographic Change - Lessons from around the Globe"
30.-31.03.2006 Dresden, Germany
Karina Pallagst, Institute of Ecological and Regional Development (IOER) and University of California, Berkeley (USA)
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Karina Pallagst |
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Abstract |
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Shrinking Cities in the United States of America
A shrinking city is characterized by economic decline and as an effect urban areas in transformation. Moreover, the loss of a certain type of employment opportunity is setting off partial out-migration. In the USA shrinkage can either be part of post-industrial transformations related with a long-term industrial transformation process due to the decline of the manufacturing industry, or be triggered by economic changes in the so called post industrial transformations of a second generation concerning the high tech industry (e.g. dot-com hype).
The phenomenon of shrinking cities is not only related to the well-known post-industrial Rust-Belt examples, but other areas are affected as well. There is not one type of a shrinking city in the USA. Due to the overall population growth triggered by immigration, many cities in the USA have to provide for redevelopment in shrinking areas and growth-related development at the same time.
Unlike as in Europe, the shrinking cities debate is a rather new research sphere in the USA planning realm. Here, urban planning often concentrates on either managing urban growth, or tackling redevelopment in a fragmented (not a regional) way - this despite the fact that shrinkage often occurs throughout an entire metropolitan region. The current discourse in urban and regional planning in the USA still shows a high affinity to growth tendencies. Despite the revitalization approach, planning is usually focused on city centers, and there is no active discussion of shrinking cities.
The presentation will choose cities as cases studies, which have the following characteristics in common:
They are affected by changes or decline in one specific economic sector.
They have lost a significant amount of population following the economic changes.
The loss of population might be concealed (not compensated!) by in-migration of population with other demands for jobs and housing.
Economic and population changes have triggered or will most likely lead to changes in planning strategies.
Three cases of shrinking cities in the USA will be introduced: Pittsburgh, Youngstown, and San Jose, each of them representing a different path of shrinkage, showing certain patterns of shrinkage, and of the related strategies. |
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Letzte Änderung: 03.05.2006 |
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