ABSTRACT
Shrinking metropolitan areas can be classified into three general categories based on the proximate cause: economic decline, public policy and declining fertility rates. Shrinking cities can be measured in the United States by comparing the most recent population data to earlier censuses holding the geographies constant. The most frequently occurring cause of shrinking metropolitan areas is economic decline, which might be also characterized as declining economic competitiveness. This is most evident in Europe and the United States. Public policy can drive shrinking cities, usually as a result of authoritarian policies that can extract a heavy human price. It is possible that the Tokyo metropolitan area could retain much of its current population as other metropolitan areas around the nation sustain huge losses. Shrinking municipalities can be shrinking even as their corresponding metropolitan areas exhibit strong growth. Indeed, shrinking neighborhoods can exist in core municipalities, with their impact masked by growth in other parts of the municipality.
