Shrinking Cities in Portugal – Where and Why

Abstract

It may seem paradoxical that in a period of rapid urban growth, some cities are shrinking; however, they are two sides of the same coin of urban change. This article identifies cities that are shrinking in Portugal. Looking at the demo- graphic evolution from the 1991 until 2011 we identified 17 cities that are losing inhabitants, 9 of them persistently and 8 since 2001. This decline is present in the two biggest cities of Portugal, Lisbon and Oporto that present 17% and 21% decline respectively. After this first screening, we crossed the history of each city with socio-economic data (e.g. employment rate, housing characteristics, and unemployment among others) and purposed that reasons for shrinking include: suburbanization, eco- nomic transformation, satellite effect and environmental drivers. However, several cities pre- sent a mixture of reasons underlying shrinking and further work should be undertake to complement this exploratory analysis.