What is it about?

How does city actually shrink? To answer this question it is necessary to analyze the city in both aspects, demographic and morphological. But it is not enought. It is also vital to go down to the level of urban neighbourhoods to indicate the path of their development. The case of Łódź, Poland ilustrates the this approach to uerban shrinkage phenomena whic is common in Central-Eastern European cities since 1990s

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Why is it important?

Our fidings show that it is essential to analyse urban shrinkage phenomena at least at two dimmesions. Taking into account demographic and morphological transitions in Łódź, Poland after 1990, we found that while the city is considered as one of the fastest shrinking city in current Europe, in fact they are shrinking just central, run-down areas with the worst living conditions. The outer zones are have benn growing, both in demographic and morphological dimensions since 1990s. This show that Łódź, as most cities cosnidered as shrinking, are rather perforated cities. As a result this requires a completely different approach to urban development planning and urban regeneration.

Perspectives

Writing this article we wanted to focused scholars and practitioners attention into the real nature of urban shrinkage phenomena. The most essential changes, negative as well as positive ones, are occuring at the most basic level of each urban neighbourhood. To understand how to conduct urban regeneration in shrinking city, this is crucial. We believe the methodology we introduced and findings from our studies will be preceived as essential voice in the current scientific discussion in the field of urban planning.

Jaroslaw Kazimierczak
Uniwersytet Lodzki

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This page is a summary of: Demographic and morphological shrinkage of urban neighbourhoods in a post-socialist city: the case of Łódź, Poland, Geografiska Annaler Series B Human Geography, February 2019, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/04353684.2019.1582304.
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