Civic action and urban shrinkage: Exploring the link

Maja Ročak, Gert-Jan Hospers and Nol Reverda
Additional contact information
Maja Ročak: NEIMED Centre of Expertise on Demographic Change Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands

Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal, 2016, vol. 9, issue 4, 406-418

Abstract: In Europe, urban shrinkage is a widespread phenomenon with future relevance. To date, most academic and policy literature has explored the spatial impacts of this phenomenon, focusing on the infrastructure side (hardware), whereas social aspects of urban shrinkage (software) have been mostly overlooked. This paper indicates the gap regarding the software aspects of urban shrinkage. It examines the link between civic action and urban shrinkage, and finds that the concept of civic action is often promoted as a normative requirement for maintaining an area’s quality of life. In the authors’ view, social capital and civic action in the context of urban shrinkage could be valuable resources, but should not be overrated. In this respect, the authors identify and illustrate three scenarios of civic action in the context of urban shrinkage, namely (1) increased civic action, (2) no change in civic action and (3) reduced civic action. They conclude that a social theory of urban shrinkage is needed to give the debate on urban shrinkage a new impulse.

Keywords: Urban shrinkage; shrinking cities; social capital; civic action; quality of life (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: R00 Z33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://hstalks.com/article/1643/download/ (application/pdf)
https://hstalks.com/article/1643/ (text/html)
Requires a paid subscription for full access.

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:aza:jurr00:y:2016:v:9:i:4:p:406-418

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal from Henry Stewart Publications
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Henry Stewart Talks ().