ABSTRACT
This chapter connects the arguments of the current book to the literature on shrinking cities in postsocialist countries. All socialist states implemented a variety of policies that regulated population movement or spatial development either as a strategy to promote industrialization or to fit into some preconceived idea about city size. These policies and programs set the stage for urban shrinkage as political and economic reforms set in and progressed. As housing became commodified in postsocialist countries, new housing developments mushroomed to cater for the demand for a higher quality of residential space. In many postsocialist European cities, suburbanization became important, defining the shrinkage of central cities even though the overall metropolitan area may have been growing. Though similar in its outcomes, emptying the city cores of postsocialist cities is not due to the same factors as are at play in the cities of the Global North, where emptying is largely a result of socioeconomic status, class, and racial segregation.
