Shrinking cities and governance of economic reneration: the case of Ostrava

The aim of the paper is to describe and analyse the process of urban shrinkage and especially the governance structures, actors and policies tackling the causes of urban shrinkage of the city of Ostrava. In the theoretical chapters, both urban (city) shrinkage and urban governance are conceptualized and an operationalization of these concepts is outlined. Urban shrinkage is understood as population losses and related phenomena such as housing vacancies, underused social infrastructures or different kind of brownfields etc. The research design for empirical study draws on mixed methodology – quantitative (analysis of statistical data) and qualitative research approaches and techniques such as interviews, stakeholder workshops and participatory observations. Research questions are defined and considered to be the starting point for elaboration of empirical case studies. First, brief description of causes of urban shrinkage of the city of Ostrava in the period 1990–2011 is presented. The main part of this paper focuses on the economic governance structures, actors and policies tackling the main cause of shrinkage, which are deindustrialization and job related out-migration, suburbanization and changes of demographic behaviour such as drop in birth rates. Ostrava is a slightly shrinking city (approximatelly 7 % population loss from 331.000 1990 to 306.000 in 2010), which managed thanks to appropriate economic governance in period 2004–2008 to slow down the population losses caused by job related out-migration. However, population losses will continue due to low birth rates and deaths surpluses or suburbanization