Hans Schlappa - Addressing Urban Shrinkage in Small and Medium Sized Towns: Shrink Smart and Re-Grow Smaller

BY

HANS SCHLAPPA

University of Hertfordshire, UK

And

TATSUYA NISHINO

Kanazawa University, Japan

United Kingdom North America Japan India

Malaysia China

Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2021

Copyright 2021 Hans Schlappa and Tatsuya Nishino

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited

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ISBN: 978-1-80043-697-8 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-80043-696-1 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-80043-698-5 (Epub)

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Hans Schlappa is Senior Lecturer in Public Management at Hertfordshire University Business School. He has led several knowledge exchange networks on integrated approaches to urban regeneration. His research and teaching are centred around leadership the co-production of public services, public governance, and strategic management of public services. Prior to his academic career Dr Schlappa worked for 20 years in public and third sector organisations where he managed regeneration initiatives aimed at the socio-economic development of deprived urban areas and the reclamation of derelict land. Hans has extensive experience in undertaking practice oriented research, including assignments for the UK government, local government and third sector organisations.

Tatsuya Nishino is a Professor at Kanazawa University in Japan. He holds a doctoral degree obtained at Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, the University of Tokyo in 2005. He started his teaching career as Assistant Professor at Hiroshima University in 2005 and moved to Kanazawa University in 2009. In 2019, he stayed at the University of Hertfordshire as a visiting scholar for his sabbatical leave. Over the past 15 years his research has focused on facility planning for the provision of older people's services and on planning processes to re-organise public service providing facilities in cities affected by population loss. He co-edited a book in 2015 on methods for re-organisation of public service providing facilities in Japan. He received the Prize of AIJ 2019 from Architectural Institute of Japan for his studies on facility planning.

In the twenty-first century, the management of shrinkage and decline, rather than economic growth, has become the strategic objective for a large number of urban settlements. Contemporary studies show how global trends enable large cities to grow, even in adverse economic conditions, while smaller towns become locked into long-term decline (Martinez-Fernandez, Kubo, Noya, & Weyman, 2012; UN-Habitat, 2008). The rapidly growing body of research on urban shrinkage provides a complex picture of the seemingly intractable problems arising from economic restructuring, demographic change, migration, sub-urbanisation, environmental shocks and political upheavals. Local leaders are unfamiliar with developing responses that diverge from accepted notions of achieving economic growth and every failure to restore a city's fortunes adds to a prevailing sense of resignation and confusion. A key challenge is to put forward plausible proposals for how to bridge the gap between a town's, often prosperous, past and a future that promises an improvement on the continuous decline that inhabitants experience. It is entirely understandable that politicians, officials and residents can find it difficult to accept that their town is shrinking, which refers to a reduction in its overall size, or declining which infers deterioration and being on a downward path. However, being in denial about this reality makes it difficult to develop effective pathways that would address the challenges arising from long-term decline and shrinkage.