Planning urban shrinkage along the danube – a paradox or a new normality?

Abstract

COULD MACRO-LEVEL URBAN PLANNING be an effective solution to the issue of the shrinkage of many low-income cities in post-socialist countries in the eastern half of Europe? Although urban shrinkage is a rather complicated and often irreversible process, different global and local planning strategies are developed to overcome its consequences (Neill & Schlappa, 2016), which is often the subject of a “top-down” political regulation. These intentions have opened new perspective for traditional urban planning, embracing different novelties.