Postsocialist Shrinking Cities: (Routledge Contemporary Perspectives on Urban Growth, Innovation and Change)

This book provides a comparative analysis of shrinking cities in a broad range of postsocialist countries within the so-called Global East, a liminal space between North and South. While shrinking cities have received increased scholarly attention in the past decades, theoretical, and empirical research has remained predominantly centered on the Global North. This volume brings to the fore a range of new perspectives on urban shrinkage, identifying commonalities, differences, and policy experiences across a very diverse and vivid region with its various legacies and contemporary controversial developments. With chapters written by leading experts in the field, insider views assist in decolonizing urban theory. Specifically, the book includes chapters on shrinking cities in China, Russia, and postsocialist Europe, presenting comparative discussions within countries and crossnational cases on theoretical and policy implications. The book will be of interest to students and scholars researching urban studies, urban geography, urban planning, urban politics and policy, urban sociology, and urban development.

Table of Contents:
Part I: Shrinkage in the Postsocialist countries: concepts and theory 1. Introduction-Urban Shrinkage in the Postsocialist realm 2. Postsocialist shrinking cities in a triple geopolitical and socioeconomic context Part II: China 3. Introduction to the China Section 4. Population shrinkage in resource-dependent cities of China during transition period 5. Shrinkage evolution trajectory of China’s resource-exhausted cities and underlying causal factors 6. Two sides of the same coin: City growth and shrinkage in rapidly urbanizing China 7. Shrinkage Urban growth: A case study of regional shrinkage in Wuhan, China 8. Urban shrinkage in the double periphery: insights from the Sino-Russian borderland Part III: Russia 9. Introduction to the Russia section 10. Urban shrinkage in Russia: concepts and causes of urban population loss in the post-Soviet period 11. Diverse landscape of urban and regional shrinkage in Russia: pre-conditions versus pre-conceptions in planning and policy 12. The Transformation of local labour markets of shrinking cities in Russia from 2010-2017 13. Giving birth in dying towns: healthcare shrinkage in a depopulating Russian region 14. Review of Spatial planning instruments in a Russian shrinking city: the case of Kirovsk in the Murmansk region Part IV: Postsocialist Europe 15. Introduction to the Postsocialist Europe section 16. Shrinking cities in postsocialist countries of East-Central and South Eastern Europe: A general and comparative overview 17. Shrinking cities in Poland: recent trends of change and emerging policy responses 18. Coping with shrinkage in old and young mining cities of Slovakia: the cases of Banská Štiavnica and Prievidza 19. Why is Ostrava in Czechia still shrinking? 20. Drivers, consequences and governance of urban shrinkage in Lithuania: the case of Šiauliai Part V: Conclusions, policy implications and research 21. Postsocialist Shrinking Cities: Policy themes and future research

About the Author :
Chung-Tong Wu is Honorary Professor, University of Sydney, and Emeritus Professor, University of New South Wales and Western Sydney University, and is the inaugural Chair of the Advisory Committee, Halloran Research Trust (Henry Halloran Trust), University of Sydney. Maria Gunko is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Geography Russian Academy of Sciences and Lecturer at the Faculty of Geography and Geoinformation Technologies, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia. Tadeusz Stryjakiewicz is a Chair Professor of Geography and Head of the Department of Economic Geography at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. Kai Zhou is an Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Head of the Urban Planning Department in the School of Architecture and Planning, Hunan University, China.