Urban shrinkage. Theoretical reflections and empirical evidence from a Southern European Perspective

This paper intends to discuss the conceptual category of urban shrinkage from an analytical perspective, a concept widely discussed in international debates but much less so in Italy, bearing in mind the spatial trends taking place in Italy over the past decade and recorded in the last census (2011). What are the distinctive features of urban shrinkage? The term was invented to indicate the processes of physical abandon and economic decline involving many urban areas of old industrialisation affected by the production crisis during the transition to post-Fordism. We are therefore faced with a multidimensional phenomenon, which needs to be observed paying particular attention to the demographic and employment dynamics and their implications in terms of urban intervention policies.