At 5 percent, Canada’s population growth was the highest of all G7 countries when the most recent census was taken. But only a handful of large cities drove that growth, attracting human and monetary capital from across the country and leaving myriad social, economic, and environmental challenges behind. Quietly Shrinking Cities investigates this trend and the practical challenges associated with population loss in smaller urban centres. Maxwell Hartt meticulously demonstrates that shrinking cities need to rethink their planning and development strategies in response to a new demographic reality, questioning whether population loss and prosperity are indeed mutually exclusive.

The shrinking city phenomenon is a multidimensional process that affects cities, parts of cities or metropolitan areas around the world that have experienced dramatic decline in their economic and social bases. Shrinkage is not a new phenomenon in the study of cities. However, shrinking cities lack the precision of systemic analysis where other factors now at work are analyzed: the new economy, globalization, aging population (a new population transition) and other factors related to the search for quality of life or a safer environment. This volume places shrinking cities in a global perspective, setting the context for in-depth case studies of cities within Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, Germany, France, Great Britain, South Korea, Australia, and the USA, which consider specific economic, social, environmental, cultural and land-use issues.

Over the past decade, Canada's population grew faster than that of any other G7 country, but only a few cities drove that growth. Quietly Shrinking Cities calls attention to an unseen cost of big-city growth: more than twenty percent of Canadian cities shrank between 2011 and 2016, and twice as many saw growth lower the national average. Max Hartt warns against treating continuous growth as the norm or as indicative of urban prosperity. Instead, he argues that urban planners must develop new strategies to face the challenges posed by declining birthrates and aging populations in smaller urban centers.

This book examines a rapidly emerging new topic in urban settlement patterns: the role of shrinking cities. Much coverage is given to declining fertility rates, ageing populations and economic restructuring as the factors behind shrinking cities, but there is also reference to resource depletion, the demise of single-company towns and the micro-location of environmental hazards. The contributions show that shrinkage can occur at any scale – from neighbourhood to macro-region - and they consider whether shrinkage of metropolitan areas as a whole may be a future trend. Also addressed in this volume is the question of whether urban shrinkage policies are necessary or effective. The book comprises four parts: world or regional issues (with reference to the European Union and Latin America); national case studies (the United States, India, China, Korea, Taiwan, Germany, Romania and Estonia); city case studies (Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland, Naples, Belfast and Halle); and broad issues such as the environmental consequences of shrinking cities. This book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners working in the fields of urban studies, economic geography and public policy.

Shrinking Cities: Understanding Shrinkage and Decline in the United States offers a contemporary look at patterns of shrinkage and decline in the United States. The book juxtaposes the complex and numerous processes that contribute to these patterns with broader policy frameworks that have been under consideration to address shrinkage in U.S. cities. A range of methods are employed to answer theoretically-grounded questions about patterns of shrinkage and decline, the relationships between the two, and the empirical associations among shrinkage, decline, and several socio-economic variables. In doing so, the book examines new spaces of shrinkage in the United States. The book also explores pro-growth and decline-centered governance, which has important implications for questions of sustainability and resilience in U.S. cities. Finally, the book draws attention to U.S.-wide demographic shifts and argues for further research on socio-economic pathways of various groups of population, contextualized within population trends at various geographic scales. This timely contribution contends that an understanding of what the city has become, as it faces shrinkage, is essential toward a critical analysis of development both within and beyond city boundaries. The book will appeal to urban and regional studies scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, as well as practitioners and policymakers.

DIVA stunning discovery by a team of scientists on Venus endangers Earth itself/divDIV At eighty-three, Dr. Helen Failia is nearing middle age but has lost none of her fighting spirit. The founder of Earth’s first fully functioning colony on Venus, she will do anything to ensure that the home she’s built and nurtured not only survives, but thrives. Despite her constant work, funding for the colony is running out, and she’s dreading telling the ten thousand colonists they must move to Earth, a world some of them have never even seen. When one of her probes returns with the unprecedented proof of an ancient alien artifact on the surface of Venus she cannot believe her luck. This is the first evidence that humanity is not alone, and the discovery will surely secure the research colony’s future./divDIV /divDIVAs Helen and her team investigate the strange new find, they learn that humanity is not the only species with its eye on the planet. A dying race of spacefaring aliens needs a new home, and Venus is perfect for the people and their massive, living cities. But these newcomers consider the human presence on Venus a very small problem, one that can be swept aside if it dares get in the way./div