Metropolitics

Sheffield Music Factory: The Legacy of Red Tape Studios

Sam Holden — 2025-01-07T12:00:24Z

Opening in 1986, in defiance of government cuts, Red Tape Studios was the first municipal recording studio in the UK. Sam Holden demonstrates how the studio brought together the city council, third sector, and community in a time of ideological individualism, drawing lessons for the renewed, contemporary interest of municipal socialism in the UK.
Opening in 1986, Red Tape Studios was the first municipal recording studio in the UK (Wichelow 2023). Named in a council paper as the Sheffield

- Essays / music, arts, arts district, arts-centered development, municipal socialism, deindustrialization, Sheffield, England, United Kingdom

Demystifying Urban Agriculture in Detroit

Flaminia Paddeu — 2017-12-14T05:30:00Z

Urban agriculture projects in North American shrinking cities have been the subject of much media attention in recent years. Taking the example of Detroit as her starting point, Flaminia Paddeu asks what the real benefits of this practice are for the residents of cities in decline.
---- Series: Shrinking Cities The French documentary Demain, showcasing a world tour of ecological alternatives and viewed by more than a million people to date, depicts the city of Detroit as a Mecca of

- From the Field / deindustrialization, Rust Belt, Baltimore, urban agriculture, agriculture, farming, Detroit, Philadelphia, vacant lots, urban decay, shrinking cities, urban decline, Cleveland, smart shrinkage, urban shrinkage, degrowth, shrinkage, wasteland, revegetation, ecological transition, socio-ecological transition

Who Stays and Who Leaves? Residential Flows in French Shrinking Cities

Mathilde Rudolph — 2017-11-01T06:00:00Z

In focusing on residential flows, Mathilde Rudolph seeks to shed light on the processes of urban decline at play in France. She emphasizes how these flows are socially selected and ultimately entrench differences in social composition between shrinking cities and growing cities, as executives appear to avoid shrinking cities while manual workers are more prone to stay.
---- Series: Shrinking Cities With the growing literature on the subject of shrinking cities, it has become easier to gain a

- From the Field / France, residential mobility, deindustrialization, blue-collar workers, manual workers, shrinking cities, urban decline, urban shrinkage, degrowth, shrinkage, executives

Shrinking to Survive? Demolition and Energy Transition in Small-Town France

Yoan Miot & Max Rousseau & translated by Oliver Waine — 2017-10-18T05:00:00Z

Faced with a process of advanced decline, public and private actors in the town of Vitry-le-François, in eastern France, have developed an original strategy built around the acceptance of their town's demographic decline. This strategy, focused on energy transition, shows that contexts of urban shrinkage can foster the emergence of alternatives to conventional business-redevelopment policies.
---- Series: Shrinking Cities Although urban shrinkage is still generally tackled through

- From the Field / deindustrialization, demolition, medium-sized cities, shrinking cities, urban decline, smart decline, smart shrinkage, Champagne-Ardenne, Grand Est, Vitry-le-François, urban shrinkage, degrowth, shrinkage, energy transition, Champagne, Eastern France

Shrinking Cities in France: The Cumulative Effects of Decline

2017-10-04T05:00:00Z

In France, different shrinking cities have followed different trajectories. They nevertheless all have certain characteristics in common: specific types of ageing population, labour market and gender distribution that increasingly set them apart from growing cities, and could exacerbate their demographic decline in the medium term.
---- Series: Shrinking Cities Population decline currently concerns over a third of functional urban areas (FUAs) in mainland France and Corsica: using the zoning

- From the Field / France, deindustrialization, migration, population, shrinking cities, urban decline, urban shrinkage, degrowth, shrinkage, demographics, demography, fertility

Shrinking Networks, Growing Solidarities? How to Design a New Social and Territorial Contract

Daniel Florentin — 2017-09-27T05:00:00Z

Utilities operators in a number of European cities, faced with significant reductions in consumption levels across the networked infrastructures they run, are at the forefront of urban shrinkage management. Unlike numerous works describing a neoliberal process of territorial dislocation, Daniel Florentin demonstrates, through the case study of Magdeburg in Germany, that these dynamics of shrinking water and energy consumption can also foster new solidarities in the management of large technical

- From the Field / deindustrialization, energy, water, networks, utilities, urban public service, Germany, solidarity, shrinking cities, urban decline, Magdeburg, urban shrinkage, degrowth, shrinkage, urban technical networks, urban services

Urban Shrinkage in France: An Invisible Issue?

Rémi Dormois & Sylvie Fol & translated by Oliver Waine — 2017-09-13T05:00:00Z

Although the phenomenon of urban shrinkage affects a significant number of French towns and cities, it is an issue that has so far been the subject of no real debate or dedicated policy at national level. A series of interviews with some of the actors involved in urban policy in France sheds light on the reasons for this long-standing “oversight” – and also reveals signs that “low-pressure housing markets” and devitalized town centres may finally be making it on to the political agenda.
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- Essays / France, housing, housing policy, urban policy, urban renewal, deindustrialization, social housing, downtown, city centre, shrinking cities, urban decline, housing markets, urban shrinkage, devitalization, devitalization of town centres

Regeneration and the Legacy of Thatcherism

Juliet Carpenter — 2014-10-15T04:55:00Z

What was Margaret Thatcher's legacy in terms of the way inner-city areas are regenerated in the UK? Juliet Carpenter shows that while the highly market-driven approach of 1980s “urban development corporations” was later officially abandoned in favour of more community-led action, certain elements of the Thatcherite philosophy survived under New Labour, resulting in the “state-led gentrification” of Britain's cities.
Much has been written about Margaret Thatcher's legacy since her death in

- Essays / urban renewal, inequalities, liberalism, deindustrialization, urban development, United Kingdom, territorial development, urban regeneration, redevelopment, Thatcher, centralism

The effects of Thatcherism in the urban North of England

Mark Bailoni & translated by Oliver Waine — 2014-04-02T04:50:00Z

The economic policies of Margaret Thatcher's governments polarised not just opinion but also whole swathes of the UK. In particular, the cities of northern England – Labour heartlands in an economically divided country – represented a counterweight during the Thatcher years. Weakened by relative decline and the continued application of Thatcherite policies post-1990, these cities now appear to have converted to a form of governance tailored to territorial competitiveness.
Reactions following

- Essays / decentralization, inequalities, liberalism, deindustrialization, United Kingdom, territorial development, Thatcher, centralism, England

The world of the blue-collar worker: changed, but not gone

2014-02-19T05:50:00Z

Despite deindustrialisation and increasingly acute economic difficulties in the former strongholds of heavy industry, manual workers remain a key group in French society. The photographs and text presented here describe the ways in which their work has changed, together with the reconfigurations both of manual workers as a group and the regions in which they live and work – and how these transformations have weakened them politically.
Manual workers played a central role in shaping and

- From the Field / inequalities, deindustrialization, work, crisis, photography, Le Bar Floréal, working classes, industry, blue-collar workers, manual workers, workers, mobilization