ABSTRACT
This chapter represents a first effort, even perhaps more of a prospective research agenda than a finished research product, at attempting to understand the general-izable geographic and demographic features of growing and shrinking areas of the United States. In the developed world, however, some part of every country struggles with population decline. Moreover, in the United States, at least, research on declining cities or areas has tended to focus on case studies of individual cities or groups of cities. Across metropolitan areas, however, the growth trend was not universal: 14 percent of all metropolitan areas experienced a decline in their populations between 2000 and 2009. The chapter asks what the demographic sources of that decline were and seeks to understand the geographic commonalities of these declining urban areas. The highest rates of population growth do not tend to occur in the largest metropolitan areas, although the largest metropolitan areas are typically of great economic and cultural relevance.
