Smart Shrinkage Solutions – Fostering Resilient Cities in Inner Peripheries of Europe (3S RECIPE)

Duration: 03/17 – 03/20

Every fifth city in Europe and about 70% of cities in the former Soviet bloc countries are struggling today with a decrease in population and its effect on urban development (economic decline, built environment decay and associated environmental hazards) – a multiple phenomenon defined as ‘urban shrinkage’.

Smart Shrinkage Solutions – Fostering Resilient Cities in Inner Peripheries of Europe (3S RECIPE) will identify existing initiatives to tackle urban shrinkage across seven case study cities and key conditions and mechanisms for their implementation.

The project deploys a novel ‘urban futures’ methodology and co-production and co-evaluation techniques to establish a more holistic picture of policy solutions and to ensure they work for different urban futures and trajectories.

The project benefits from a research and practice partnership of nine organisations that have a formidable expertise in urban development, as well as from the advisory Stakeholders Board which includes a range of leading academics and professionals working with urban shrinkage, urban sustainability, and urban re-growth in different cultural and disciplinary contexts.

The project will support the development of a practically applicable guidance on how to address urban shrinkage in the case study cities, and will also produce a policy framework and practical guidelines that can be adopted in other country contexts, including those outside Europe, such as China and Japan.