Now&Then – Wächterhäuser / Shrinking Cities Project 2004

... "For more than 150 years of industrialization there has been a constant growth of cities, turning some of them into massive sprawls. But only until recently there has been some awareness, that due to economical decline and various other factors, cities indeed tend to decrease, to shrink again - and nearly vanish. Globally speaking, the population of every forth city is more or less diminishing, some cities like for example Manchester even lost already half of their population over just two decades. Do we have a crisis, do we have to worry about that? Okay, maybe you didn’t even notice stores closing in your area" … In 2004 the interdisciplinary German art project Shrinking Cities tried to depict this phenomenon with an exhibition that focused on four international cities with major shrinking populations.

Bookshelf
"Atlas der schrumpfenden Städte / Atlas of Shrinking Cities"; Eds. Philipp Oswalt and Tim Rieniets. With editorial assistance from Elke Beyer, Anke Hagemann, Kristina Herresthal, and Henning Schirmel, 160 pp., 37.5 x 26.7 cm, with numerous color illustrations, German / English; Hatje Cantz Publishers, spring 2006; ISBN 3-7757-1714-5; 39.80 Euros.

Link: Shrinking Cities Project, Germany, 2004.