How to understand the global phenomenon of urban shrinkage at local level? comparison of urban areas in Romania and Serbia

As a global phenomenon, urban shrinkage is explained in the scientific literature through general characteristics, such as the economic and demographic decline of a city. Apart from these, it has also strong national, regional and local features. In most cases the particular aspects of each context are the main determinants for shrinkage. The aim of this paper is to determine how to understand the phenomenon at national level through a comparison of Romania and Serbia, both two post-socialist countries that share similarities and distinctions. The first step is to present the situation in each of these two countries; afterwards the same indicators will be used for comparison and conclusions. The result of the paper will be the overview of the urban shrinkage situation in both Romania and Serbia. Finally, some further recommendations are presented, such as the possibility to form a regional approach to the phenomenon

Возрождение Тимишоары: проект застройки района Ишо. Нестоличный город Тимишоара выбран культурной столицей Европы – 2021

Timisoara is a major city situated in western Romania. In 2021, it will be European Capital of Culture. The city evolved around a fortified citadel surrounded by satellite settlements. After the demolition of the fortification (the XIXth century) a consistent urban tissue developed between the core and satellites. During the years, our office produced projects situated in these intermediate areas, developing an ”urban landscape” perspective, managing to attribute to the interventions a connecting role between the existing landmarks and poles; an important role was given to the ”modelling” of the volumes in order  to open vistas and visual cones, as well as to the choice of forms and textures in order to ”stitch” the existing fabric and to offer a new reading of the city. We have selected one project in order to illustrate the methodology: the ”ISHO” Real Estate development.Тимишоара – крупный город, расположенный в западной Румынии. В 2021 году он станет культурной столицей Европы. Центром развития города изначально была крепость, окруженная поселениями-спутниками. После сноса крепости в XIX веке между центром и спутниками начала образовываться плотная городская застройка. Фирма Andreescu & Гайворонски в течение нескольких лет занимается проектами для данной территории, разрабатывая будущий «городской ландшафт» и поддерживая связь между существующими историческими объектами и архитектурными доминантами. При этом важная роль отводится «моделированию» архитектурных объемов, помогающих открыть виды, а также выбору форм и материалов, чтобы «прошить» существующую городскую ткань и предложить новое прочтение города. Для иллюстрации данной методологии авторами статьи был выбран проект застройки района Ишо

Planning urban shrinkage along the danube – a paradox or a new normality? // Introduction

COULD MACRO-LEVEL URBAN PLANNING be an effective solution to the issue of the shrinkage of many low-income cities in post-socialist countries in the eastern half of Europe? Although urban shrinkage is a rather complicated and often irreversible process, different global and local planning strategies are developed to overcome its consequences (Neill & Schlappa, 2016), which is often the subject of a “top-down” political regulation. These intentions have opened new perspective for traditional urban planning, embracing different novelties

New Poles of Reurbanisation

Most of the urban studies define reurbanisation as a distinctive qualitative change in local population structures, particularly in the inner neighbourhoods of cities (Haase et al, 2003), urban renewal (Bernt, 2009) or middle-class housing change and gentrification (Bridge, 2006). In the post-socialist countries, reurbanisation is very much expressed as a suburbanisation (Ouředníček & Šimon, 2015), while the process of deconcentration and decentralisation is clearly generated by the political, economic and societal changes occurred after 1990 (Stan, 2015)