segregation patterns, shrinking cities, Lepzig, Genoa, Ostrava

Sozialräumliche Segregation - die Frage nach der ungleichen Verteilung sozialer Gruppen im Stadtraum - ist ein klassisches Thema der Stadtsoziologie. Wenig ist jedoch über die Dynamik und Ausprägung sozialräumlicher Segregation in schrumpfenden Städten bekannt: Städte, die Bevölkerung verlieren durch Wellen von Suburbanisierung, wirtschaftlichen Strukturwandel, politische Umbrüche, Naturkatastrophen und bzw. oder durch den demographischen Wandel (Haase et al. 2013; Couch et al. 2012).

Socio-spatial segregation - the question of the uneven distribution of social groups in urban space - is a classic of urban research literature. The extensive body of literature was elaborated set against the background of growing cities starting from the immigrant city of Chicago, which provided the empirical setting for the development of the ideas social ecology in the 1920s with ?natural areas? or ?zones of transition?. Less is known about the dynamics and patterns of socio-spatial segregation in shrinking cities that is cities which loose population over a longer period of time due to a bundle of causes, ranging worldwide from de-industrialization or other economic restructurings, waves of suburbanization, political change or conflict, natural hazards or demographic change.