Towards a New Planning Vocabulary

The main tenet of this paper is that current planning approaches are insufficient to handle the transformation of shrinking territories from an urban design point of view. The paper will address and explore the re-thinking of planning and design approaches to shrinking territories by characterizing the behaviors and characteristics of environments suffering from decline in population and economy. The paper unveils the positive as well as the negative aspects of the different design interventions conducted and shows which agencies are behind the initiatives. It categorizes both predictable and nonconventional approaches that have been proposed or implemented when local governments find that sections of their cities become unwieldy. Toward that end, the paper defines six goals based on twelve applications within a matrix of strategies. The matrix provides specific examples of application in order to develop a catalogue both of representative and nonconventional approaches to steering the rehabilitation of shrinking territories.