In a world that expects cities to fuel economic growth and attract millions of people every year, there’s something unnerving about the phrase “shrinking cities.” But thousands of cities are getting smaller, leaving vacant homes, abandoned factories, and oversized infrastructure. Shrinking cities pose a new problem for urban planners: how to manage the transition to fewer residents with a tool kit designed for expansion.
Urbanist Fernando Ortiz-Moya argues that instead of chasing regrowth, cities can embrace their smaller size and build on their unique character and history to enhance life for those who remain. The title reads as a statement of presence: people are still in these places, and their lives and claims on the city matter.
The book’s method is comparison. Ortiz-Moya sets official responses to shrinkage against spontaneous bottom-up actions led by traditionally marginalized residents in three cities: Pittsburgh, Manchester, and Kitakyushu. The chapter titles, “Pittsburgh, Still Rusting,” “Manchester, Turning Tables,” and “Kitakyushu, Becoming Green,” suggest three different trajectories. It spans across three countries: the United States, Britain, and Japan, so the argument cannot be dismissed as a story about one national planning culture.
That concept is the book’s main theoretical offering. Ortiz-Moya presents decline as a springboard for social and physical reconstruction and justice-driven urbanism, exposing both the limits of pro-growth planning and the seeds of an alternative. Far from a cautionary tale, this book makes a convincing case for the shrinking city as a laboratory for innovative, people-centered urban policy and collective empowerment.
We’re Still Here: Regenerating Shrinking Cities from the Ground Up raises plenty of questions. Three cities give a good range, but can their lessons really apply to any other parts of the world? Praising grassroots action also raises a worry: what about residents who don’t have the time, money, or political clout to organize? Volunteer energy shouldn’t become a reason for governments to stop investing. And shrinking cities do lose things, like services, tax revenue, and young people, so there is an obvious need for a book book that calls itself far from a cautionary tale to show how it avoids romanticizing decline.
This book’s in-depth analysis and elegant yet accessible writing will appeal to anyone with an interest in the well-being of cities. As populations age and more cities lose residents, the question this book asks will only get harder to ignore. Its answer is hopeful without being naive, because it rests on real evidence from real places. Anyone who plans, studies, or simply lives in a city should find something useful here.