The phrase “shrinking cities” conjures up images of economically ravaged places, defined by declining populations and massive job loss. A USA Today report earlier this year listed declining Rustbelt cities like Johnstown, Pennsylvania; Youngstown, Ohio; and Pine Bluffs, Arkansas as among America’s 25 fastest-shrinking cities. These places not only suffered from massive population loss, but high rates of unemployment and violent crime.
But a new study suggests that shrinking population and economic decline don’t always come hand-in-hand: A striking subset of cities with declining populations are in fact economically prosperous. The report by Maxwell Hartt, my former University of Toronto colleague who is now at Cardiff University, examines the economic performance of American cities with shrinking populations, looking at their performance on indices of income, unemployment, job growth, and economic inequality from 1980 to 2010.
