Shrinking Cities, Central Europe, Case study, Ostrava

According to estimates by the United Nations and the European Commission, the population of the western, northern and southern Europe has been declining for at least two decades, and the decline will continue (European Commission 2005). In addition, since the beginning of the 1990s, the demographic decline of Central and Eastern Europe as a whole has intensifi ed as a result of decreasing birth rates Rychtaříková (2000).