Shrinking cities. A global phenomenon begins to burgeon in China

When the urban studies on shrinking cities and urban shrinkage are gradually prevalent in the developed world, China starts stepping into this brand-new research field. This thesis argues that the current research results of shrinking cities in China cannot virtually reflect the exact phenomenon of urban shrinkage in China, and there must be some specialties under different environment of social system, population base, urbanization, industrialization, and other national conditions from those in other countries, whether in terms of identification, causes, or manifestations. Based on the study of definition of other research bodies and by teasing out the shrinking process and features of shrinking cities in Germany, North America, Italy and Russia, this thesis firstly aims to figure out the concept of urban shrinkage and generalize an applicable definition of shrinking cities. In accordance with the importance of shrinking mechanism in identification, which is newly added condition for the definition, the second aim of this thesis is to demonstrate the disadvantages of the current research of Chinese shrinking cities, and carry out a re-identification of areas having urban shrinkage in China. The thesis clarifies the current situation of population movement in urban villages; it distinguishes Chinese “ghost cities” from shrinking cities, which further helps confirm that the physical dimension just plays a supporting role in identifying shrinking cities; it finally identifies the urban shrinkage phenomenon in the old industrial base of northeastern China, in which the globalization, post-socialist transformation, de-industrialization, demographic change, resource depletion, and other factors interact with each other and further heavily impact not only on the population size, economic dynamism and physical dimension, but also on the society in terms of the ideology and the living condition. Thus, this thesis argues that when analyzing the phenomenon of urban shrinkage, the society issues also need to be considered, as well as in the future policy responses and planning strategies.