ABSTRACT
This chapter brings together a cross-national perspective by identifying the key policy issues and the major processes relating them to the relevant literature and highlighting the comparative aspects, as well as potential lessons. In addition to some pre-existing core centers, new patterns of uneven spatial development and of population shifts leading to shrinking cities have emerged. Shenzhen and the southern China industrial zone, close to Hong Kong. With the few post-socialist countries accepting shrinking cities as a reality that requires adaptation rather than a phenomenon to counteract, planning and policymaking become based on variations of the growth paradigm dominant in the 20th century. Since shrinking cities have connotations that few politicians in any political setting can embrace, spawning innovative programs such as the “legacy cities” are an attempt to try to entice the communities and politicians to get on board.
