Urban shrinkage and resurgence in Germany

This article questions the strict parallelism of demographic and economic development in characterising urban shrinkage in Germany. As the cases of several Ruhr cities and East German cities prove, urban economic growth can be achieved thanks to the substantial presence of modern industries and business services, and despite declines in population size. Serious shrinkages of Halle, Cottbus and Schwerin are primarily due to failures in the post-industrial transformation process. Recent policy measures strongly oriented towards slowing the downsizing process of population (via e.g. urban regeneration strategies) do not appear to be sufficient for achieving urban resurgence in these cities. More active industrial policy measures are required there to create a competitive high-tech manufacturing sector, to stimulate innovation activities and to boost its growth interdependence with modern local services and R&D infrastructure. 本文质疑了在描绘德国城市收缩中出现的人口和经济发展严格并行论。如鲁尔区和东德多个城 市的案例所证明的，即使人口规模收缩，通过大规模的现代工业和商业服务业，城市经济仍可 实现增长。哈雷、科特布斯和什未林的严重收缩主要是由于后工业转型进程中的失败。近年来 以减缓人口收缩过程为重点导向的政策举措（例如通过城市再生战略），看起来并不足以实现 这些城市的复兴。有必要采取更主动的产业政策措施，来培育具有竞争力的高科技制造业，刺 激创新活动，促进增长与现代化地方服务以及研发基础设施的相互依存度。