Postsocialist Shrinking Cities

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.

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