Understanding Urban Shrinkage from a Regional Perspective: Case Study of Northeast China

Urban shrinkage has become a worldwide phenomenon, and poses challenges to urban planning and regional development strategies. Although numerous researchers have identified the characteristics and causes of urban shrinkage, the understanding of urban shrinkage from a regional perspective has not yet been explored. To fill this gap, in this paper, we analyzed the nature of urban shrinkage in northeast China, the typical Chinese region affected by urban shrinkage, from a regional perspective. The results show urban shrinkage occurs in 64 county-level cities. A total of 34.62% of shrinking cities were classified as smartly growing cities, characterized by economic growth and population loss, while 65.38% of shrinking cities were identified as absolutely shrinking cities, suffering simultaneously from economic and demographic decline. The connection between central cities and shrinking cities allowed identification of three types of phenomena, namely central agglomeration leading to peripheral shrinkage, shrinkage of prefecture-level city proper, and central diffusion leading to peripheral shrinkage. The causes of urban shrinkage include agglomeration effects of central cities, aging of demographic structure, supply-demand mismatch between industries and market, weak connection between industries and services, and underdeveloped public services. Furthermore, the agglomeration effects of central cities play a critical role in urban shrinkage in northeast China. Therefore, from a regional perspective, shrinkage was an inevitable experience in the process of socioeconomic development in northeast China. The best development path for northeast China may be to comply with the tendency toward urban shrinkage, and restructuring of the spatial distribution of socioeconomic activities.