Demographic and morphological shrinkage of urban neighbourhoods in a post-socialist city: the case of Łódź, Poland

The paper contributes to the discussion concerning methods used to analyse urban shrinkage and points to the need to comprehensively examine the reasons, course and effects of the process by expanding the research perspective with morphological aspect. In accordance with theoretical assumption adopted for this paper, morphology acts as an element that complements demographic changes in the identification of urban shrinkage since the observed quantitative and qualitative changes in the urban fabric are indicative of the direction of economic and social transformations in cities. The paper aims at identifying the course of shrinkage in a selected post-socialist CEE city and discusses demographic and morphological ways of identifying the process. Łódź (Poland), one of the largest and the fastest shrinking cities in the CEE region was selected for the case study. The paper provides intra-urban scale analyses conducted at the level of individual neighbourhoods taking account of quantitative and qualitative changes in demographic and morphological structure of the city. The picture of changes at a neighbourhood level has helped identify spatial traits of urban shrinkage experienced throughout the city. Spatial scope of the area that undergoes demographic and morphological shrinkage was confronted with the crisis area intended for regeneration within the policy pursued by the city.

Narodowe Centrum Nauki na podstawie decyzji nr DEC-2014/15/B/HS4/01940. National Centre for Science, Poland based on decision no. DEC-2014/15/B/HS4/01940. Ministry of Science and Higher Education Republic of Poland under Grants for Young Scholars [grant number WNG UL B1711700001571.02].