Reimagining alternative future development trajectories of shrinking Finnish cities

Annamari Kiviaho and Saija Toivonen

International Planning Studies, 2024, vol. 29, issue 1, 1-18

Abstract: Shrinking cities are seen as places with poor development prospects, as places that should adjust to given future realities of shrinkage. However, because the future is open to many alternative possibilities, shrinking cities also have a variety of alternative futures to which earlier research has paid less attention. This study aims to identify and analyse the alternative future development trajectories of shrinking cities. In this study, the futures research method called futures wheel is utilized to analyse possible future consequences of 24 different forces of change that can steer the future development of shrinking cities. By combining the futures wheel method with qualitative data from eight shrinking Finnish cities, we can reveal possible future development paths that may result from the forces. Overall, our results show that shrinking cities have various alternative future development trajectories leading to various outcomes. Some of the forces may intensify the current negative effects caused by urban shrinkage. By contrast, other forces can radically change future development.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13563475.2023.2259109 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:cipsxx:v:29:y:2024:i:1:p:1-18

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/cips20

DOI: 10.1080/13563475.2023.2259109

Access Statistics for this article

International Planning Studies is currently edited by Shin Lee, Scott Orford and Francesca Sartorio

More articles in International Planning Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().