Journal of Geographical Sciences >
Progress and major themes of research on urban shrinkage and its eco-environmental impacts
Chen Dan (1993-), PhD Candidate, specialized in urban development and shrinkage. E-mail: chend.19b@igsnrr.ac.cn |
Received date: 2022-04-13
Accepted date: 2022-12-23
Online published: 2023-05-11
Supported by
National Natural Science Foundation of China, Innovative Research Group Project(42121001)
Urban shrinkage is the process of population loss, industrial and functional decline, and eco-environmental deterioration due to various natural and human factors that occur once a city’s development reaches a certain point. It is an external manifestation of positive or negative changes in an urban economy, society, culture, resource use, and sustainability. Urban shrinkage is a new feature of global urbanization as well as a frontier of international and Chinese research. It has attracted widespread attention from academics in China and overseas, becoming an emerging trend that has spread from developed countries to underdeveloped ones. Research on and responses to urban shrinkage have also become new tasks of China’s new urbanization strategy. Our review of the existing literature reveals that there are significant temporal and spatial differences in research by Chinese and overseas scholars on urban shrinkage. Urban shrinkage studies have paid scant attention to interactions with the eco-environment, with analyses of urban shrinkage mechanisms and factors largely focusing on economic and social development factors; and urban shrinkage index analyses have tended not to include eco-environmental quality and environmental pollution indicators. The key tasks for future urban shrinkage research include the following: to conduct in-depth research on the mechanisms and driving factors of urban shrinkage to reveal the essence of urban shrinkage; to discover the principles behind interactions between urban shrinkage and the eco-environment, as well as to analyze the eco-environmental effects of urban shrinkage; to construct an index system for evaluating the extent, monitoring and providing warnings of, and containing urban shrinkage; and to research urban shrinkage coping strategies under different circumstances and carry out experiments and demonstrations according to local conditions.
CHEN Dan , FANG Chuanglin , LIU Zhitao . Progress and major themes of research on urban shrinkage and its eco-environmental impacts[J]. Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2023 , 33(5) : 1113 -1138 . DOI: 10.1007/s11442-023-2122-x
Table 1 Definitions of urban shrinkage of various scholars and institutions |
Scholar or institution | Year | Definition |
---|---|---|
Häußermann and Siebel | 1988 | Significant population loss and urban economic decline influenced by deindustrialization |
SC Project | 2006 | Urban areas with 10% population loss or annual loss of more than 1% |
Schilling and Logan | 2008 | Urban population loss of 25% or more over 40 years, leading to an increase in vacant and abandoned homes and land as well as dilapidated residential, commercial and industrial buildings |
SCIRN | 2008 | Densely populated urban area of more than 10,000 people that has experienced population loss for two consecutive years due to a structural economic crisis |
Reckien and Martinez-Fernandez | 2011 | Urban areas (cities and towns) or regions that have consistently experienced population decline, employment decline, and economic recession over the past 40-50 years |
Hoekveld | 2012 | Continuous decline in an urban population for five years |
Xu and Pang | 2014 | It refers to the continuous loss of urban population, in the narrow sense, and it refers to overall declines to population, economy, society, environment, and culture, in a broad sense |
Li et al. | 2015 | Cities that experience negative population growth for more than five years |
Zhang et al. | 2020 | Urban development that causes a reduction in population and the labor force as well as economic stagnation or recession and a reduction or depression of social activities |
Sun and Wang | 2021 | Absolute reduction in relevant development factors centered on population, as well as a decline in the status, role, and radial influence of a city in a regional urban system (or regional function integration) due to globalization and regional integration, leading to the relocation of factors of economic development, such as population, and spatial flows and spillovers of factors of production |
Data source: Studies by the relevant institutions and scholars. |
Table 2 Dimensions of urban shrinkage indicators used by Chinese scholars |
Scholar | Study area | Dimensions | Indicator description |
---|---|---|---|
Wu et al. (2015) | Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Yangtze River Delta | Single | Population (resident population, registered population, employed population) |
Zhang et al. (2016) | 337 administrative units at and above prefectural level and 2,683 county-level cities and districts in China | Single | Population |
Du and Li (2017a) | Pearl River Delta rapid urbanization area | Multiple | Population, economy, land |
Lin et al. (2017) | 286 Chinese cities at and above prefectural level | Multiple | Population, labor force and population, economy, space, fiscal |
Zhou et al. (2017) | Hunan Province, China (prefectural-level cities, county-level cities and districts, and townships and sub-districts) | Multiple | Population, economy, urbanization |
Cheng et al. (2019) | 141 county-level cities in China’s border areas | Single | Population |
Liu et al. (2019) | 329 Chinese cities | Dual | Population, economy |
Wen et al. (2019) | 287 Chinese cities and districts at and above prefectural level | Multiple | Population, economy, society |
Zhang et al. (2019b) | 635 Chinese cities at and above county level | Multiple | Population, economy, space |
Chen et al. (2020) | Yellow River Basin | Single | Population |
Wu et al. (2020) | Northeast China | Multiple | Population, economy, society, space |
Yang and Cai (2020) | Hubei Province, China | Dual | Population, land |
Zhang et al. (2020) | 288 Chinese cities at and above prefectural level | Multiple | Population, economy, society |
Chen et al. (2021) | Loess Plateau in China | Single | Population |
Sun and Wang (2021) | Northeast China | Multiple | Population, economy, resources, fiscal |
Data source: Works by the relevant authors |
Table 3 Analyses of drivers of urban shrinkage by Chinese scholars |
Scholar | Typical study area | Population change | Economy level | Industrial development | Policy adjust- ments | Major events | Resources and energy | Trans- port Openness | Natural conditions | Urbani- zation level | Other |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Long et al. (2015) | Townships and subdistrict level in China | √ | √ | √ | Administrative divisions and social resources | ||||||
Wu et al. (2015) | Beijing-Tianjin- Hebei and Yangtze River Delta | √ | √ | √ | √ | Administrative level | |||||
Du and Li (2017a) | Rapid urbani- zation in Pearl River Delta | √ | √ | √ | √ | √ | Innovative practices | ||||
Cheng et al. (2019) | 141 border counties in China | √ | √ | √ | √ | √ | International relations and administrative division adjustments | ||||
Liu et al. (2019) | China | √ | √ | √ | √ | ||||||
Zhang et al. (2019b) | China | √ | √ | √ | √ | √ | City size and municipal construction and eco- environment | ||||
Chen et al. (2020) | Yellow River Basin | √ | √ | √ | √ | √ | √ | ||||
Wu et al. (2020) | Northeast China | √ | √ | √ | √ | Land use structure |
Data source: Works by the relevant authors |
Figure 1 Analysis framework of driving mechanisms of urban shrinkage |
Figure 2 Interactive mechanisms between urban shrinkage and the eco-environment |
Figure 3 Comprehensive evaluation index of urban shrinkage |
Figure 4 Leading types of urban shrinkage and response strategies |
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