ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the idea of the second demographic transition (SDT), to provide a broader conceptual background, and examines the urban dimensions of demographic change. The interconnections between housing and demography are explored by different research fields. With the volume Housing Demography, published in 1990, the US-American geographer Dowell Myers explicitly tried to bridge what he perceived as the considerable gap between population and housing research. Quantitative population development represents one of the key concerns of demographers. Population growth is a result of the interplay of natural change and migration. The processes of the second demographic transition are most visible in the urban environment. It is true for migration, above all for immigration, which has always been a decisive driver of urban change. The new societal institutions of the post-socialist phase again impact on demographic decisions and their timing. In the western discourse, however, great significance is attached to the latter in order to explain the second demographic transition.
