Abstract:

This paper argues that demographic shrinking and stagnation processes have influenced urban development in East and West Germany since the end of WW II at almost all times.Nevertheless,until reunification of both German countries in 1990 urban planning have always been based on the assumption of growth.Then,after reunification demographic change began to influence cities and rural regions decisively through shrinking.In the context of aging and shrinking,the causes and consequences of shrinking were discussed.This discussion focused on examples in East Germany as shrinking occurred much more intensively in this part of the country.The second part of the paper focused on strategies tackling the problem of shrinking.For urban areas the strategies of concentration and perforation were being discussed.Both contributed to a higher quality of life in cities by reducing the builtup area and developing green spaces or less intensive uses instead.Shrinking in remote rural regions on the other hand would need to be handled with much more rigidity.One possible solution would be a systematic spatial retreat,by giving up public infrastructure or more radically giving up entire regions by relocating people and concentrating them in towns 〗