Course detail

Reurbanization in Europe

FA-RUE-ZEAcad. year: 2025/2026

The aim of the subject is to familiarise participants and participants with the latest aspects of the co-development processes of urbanisation (suburbanization, reurbanization) on selected European examples, with reference to the situation of Polish cities. It is about showing the conditions for re-urbanisation processes at the level of household decisions (housing mobility), the actions of local authorities (socio-spatial effects of local policies and spatial planning), and macrostructural political and economic conditions resulting in specific spatial movements.

As a result of participating in this course, students have a better understanding of the issues of socio-spatial development of cities, and have access to the latest knowledge and data from urban development research. They can see these phenomena in space, describe their causes, and discuss social and spatial consequences.

Language of instruction

English

Number of ECTS credits

5

Mode of study

Not applicable.

Aims

  • Students have an in-depth knowledge of the processes of suburbanisation and re-urbanisation in a European context.
  • Students learn to identify and analyse different factors of suburbanisation process - household decisions, governance, and macro political and economic context; as well as to juxtapose those factors.
  • Students learn to utilise empirical data on the processes of suburbanisation and re-urbanisation in Europe.
  •  Students are ready to scrutinise causes and consequences of the localised cases of suburbanisation and re-urbanisation; for the purposes of localised urban public policy.

Rules for evaluation and completion of the course

  • Individual semester paper (50%, at the end of the course)
  • Individual oral presentation (25%, right after the presentation)

Study aids

Not applicable.

Prerequisites and corequisites

Not applicable.

Basic literature

Bourne, Larry S. 1996. “Reurbanization, Uneven Urban Development, and the Debate on New Urban Forms.” Urban Geography 17(8):690–713. (EN)
Brombach, Karoline, Johann Jessen, Stefan Siedentop, and Philipp Zakrzewski. 2017. “Demographic Patterns of Reurbanisation and Housing in Metropolitan Regions in the US and Germany.” Comparative Population Studies 42:281–318. (EN)
Bromley, Rosemary D. F., Andrew R. Tallon, and Alexander J. Roberts. 2007. “New Populations in the British City Centre: Evidence of Social Change from the Census and Household Surveys.” Geoforum 38(1):138–54. (EN)
Butler, Tim. 2007. “Re-Urbanizing London Docklands: Gentrification, Suburbanization or New Urbanism?” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 31(4):759–81. (EN)
Buzar, Stefan, Philip Ogden, Ray Hall, Annegret Haase, Sigrun Kabisch, and Annett Steinführer. 2007. “Splintering Urban Populations: Emergent Landscapes of Reurbanisation in Four European Cities.” Urban Studies 44(4):651–77. (EN)
Carlucci, Margherita, Francesco Maria Chelli, and Luca Salvati. 2018. “Toward a New Cycle: Short-Term Population Dynamics, Gentrification, and Re-Urbanization of Milan (Italy).” Sustainability (Switzerland) 10(9). (EN)
Colomb, Claire. 2007. “Unpacking New Labour’s ‘Urban Renaissance’ Agenda: Towards a Socially Sustainable Reurbanization of British Cities?” Planning Practice and Research 22(1):1–24. (EN)
Couch, Chris, and Steven Fowles. 2019. “Metropolitan Planning and the Phenomenon of Reurbanisation: The Example of Liverpool.” Planning Practice and Research 34(2):184–205. (EN)
Couch, Chris, Steven Fowls, and Jay Karecha. 2009. “Reurbanization and Housing Markets in the Central and Inner Areas of Liverpool.” Planning Practice and Research 24(3):321–41. (EN)
Davis, Amélie Y. 2014. “A Review of ‘The End of the Suburbs: Where the American Dream Is Moving.’” Journal of the American Planning Association 80(1):92–92. (EN)
de Oliver, Miguel. 2019. “Defending Gentrification as a Valid Collective Conception: Utilizing the Metanarrative of ‘Suburbia’ as a Common Axis for the Diversity of Middle-Class Reurbanization Projects.” Urban Affairs Review 55(5). (EN)
Dembski, Sebastian, Olivier Sykes, Chris Couch, Xavier Desjardins, David Evers, Frank Osterhage, Stefan Siedentop, and Karsten Zimmermann. 2019. “Reurbanisation and Suburbia in Northwest Europe: A Comparative Perspective on Spatial Trends and Policy Approaches.” Progress in Planning (June):100462. (EN)
Flaga, Małgorzata. 2010. “Demographic Consequences of Suburbanization in Selected Towns in the Eastern Borderlands of Poland.” Bulletin of Geography. (EN)
Frank, Susanne. 2016. “Inner-City Suburbanization – No Contradiction in Terms. Middle-Class Family Enclaves Are Spreading in the Cities.” Raumforschung Und Raumordnung 76(2):123–32. (EN)
Gałka, Jadwiga, and Anna Warych-Juras. 2018. “Suburbanization and Migration in Polish Metropolitan Areas during Political Transition.” Acta Geographica Slovenica. (EN)
Gross, James, and Yu Ouyang. 2020. “Types of Urbanization and Economic Growth.” International Journal of Urban Sciences. (EN)
Haase, Annegret, and Dieter Rink. 2015. “Inner-City Transformation between Reurbanization and Gentrification: Leipzig, Eastern Germany.” Geografie-Sbornik CGS 120(2). (EN)
Haase, Annegret, Dieter Rink, Katrin Grossmann, Matthias Bernt, and Vlad Mykhnenko. 2014. “Conceptualizing Urban Shrinkage.” Environment and Planning A. (EN)
Haase, Annegret, Günter Herfert, Sigrun Kabisch, and Annett Steinführer. 2012. “Reurbanizing Leipzig (Germany): Context Conditions and Residential Actors (2000-2007).” European Planning Studies 20(7):1173–96. (EN)
Haase, Annegret, Katrin Grossmann, and Annett Steinführer. 2012. “Transitory Urbanites: New Actors of Residential Change in Polish and Czech Inner Cities.” Cities 29(5):318–26. (EN)
Haase, Annegret, Manuel Wolff, Petra Špačková, and Adam Radzimski. 2017. “Reurbanisation in Postsocialist Europe – A Comparative View of Eastern Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic.” Comparative Population Studies 42(2017):353–90. (EN)
Haase, Annegret, Matthias Bernt, Katrin Großmann, Vlad Mykhnenko, and Dieter Rink. 2016. “Varieties of Shrinkage in European Cities.” European Urban and Regional Studies. (EN)
Haase, Annegret, Sigrun Kabisch, Annett Steinführer, Stefan Bouzarovski, Ray Hall, and Philip Ogden. 2010. “Emergent Spaces of Reurbanisation.” Population Space and Place 463(December 2009):443–63. (EN)
Haase, Dagmar, Annegret Haase, Sigrun Kabisch, and Peter Bischoff. 2008. “Guidelines for the ‘Perfect Inner City’. Discussing the Appropriateness of Monitoring Approaches for Reurbanization.” European Planning Studies 16(8):1075–1100. (EN)
Hierse, Lin, Henning Nuissl, Fabian Beran, and Felix Czarnetzki. 2017. “Concurring Urbanizations? Understanding the Simultaneity of Sub-and Re-Urbanization Trends with the Help of Migration Figures in Berlin.” Regional Studies, Regional Science 4(1):189–201. (EN)
Horňáková, Marie, and Jana Jíchová. 2019. “Deciding Where to Live: Case Study of Cohousing-Inspired Residential Project in Prague.” Journal of Housing and the Built Environment. (EN)
Chen, Yiqiao, Elisabete A. Silva, and José P. Reis. 2020. “Measuring Policy Debate in a Regrowing City by Sentiment Analysis Using Online Media Data: A Case Study of Leipzig 2030.” Regional Science Policy and Practice. (EN)
Jürgens, Ulrich. 2008. “The ‘Concept’ of Reurbanisation? Discussion of a Many-Faceted Term and Its Variations.” Erde 139(4):281–88. (EN)
Kabisch, Nadja, Dagmar Haase, and Annegret Haase. 2010. “Evolving Reurbanisation? Spatio-Temporal Dynamics as Exemplified by the East German City of Leipzig.” Urban Studies 47(5):967–90. (EN)
Kabisch, Nadja, Dagmar Haase, and Annegret Haase. 2012. “Urban Population Development in Europe, 1991-2008: The Examples of Poland and the Uk.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 36(6):1326–48. (EN)
Kabisch, Nadja, Dagmar Haase, and Annegret Haase. 2019. “Reurbanisation: A Long-Term Process or a Short-Term Stage?” Population, Space and Place 25(8):1–13. (EN)
Kährik, Anneli, Jana Temelová, Kati Kadarik, and Jan Kubeš. 2016. “What Attracts People to Inner City Areas? The Cases of Two Post-Socialist Cities in Estonia and the Czech Republic.” Urban Studies 53(2):355–72. (EN)
Kurek, Sławomir, and Mirosław Wójtowicz. 2018. “Reurbanisation in a Post-Socialist City: Spatial Differentiation of the Population in the KrakÓw Area (Poland).” Geographia Polonica 91(4):449–68. (EN)
Lever, W. F. 2015. “Reurbanisation-The Policy Implications.” 30(2). (EN)
Manis, Jerome G. 1959. “Annexation: The Process of Reurbanization.” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 18(4):353–353. (EN)
Osterhage, Frank. 2011. “Renaissance of Cities? An Empirical Analysis of the Population Development in German City Regions.” Real Corp 2011 6(May):1357–62. (EN)
Ouředníček, Martin, Martin Šimon, and Martina Kopečná. 2015. “The Reurbanisation Concept and Its Utility for Contemporary Research on Post-Socialist Cities: The Case of the Czech Republic.” Moravian Geographical Reports 23(4):26–35. (EN)
Özogul, Sara, and Tuna Tasan-Kok. 2020. “One and the Same? A Systematic Literature Review of Residential Property Investor Types.” Journal of Planning Literature. (EN)
Prysiazhniuk, Oksana, Mariia Plotnikova, Oleksiy Buluy, and Volodymyr Yakobchuk. 2020. “REURBANIZATION AS A SOLUTION OF SOCIO-ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC PROBLEMS.” Management Theory and Studies for Rural Business and Infrastructure Development 41(4). (EN)
Rae, Alasdair. 2013. “English Urban Policy and the Return to the City: A Decade of Growth, 2001-2011.” Cities 32:94–101. (EN)
Rérat, Patrick. 2012. “The New Demographic Growth of Cities: The Case of Reurbanisation in Switzerland.” Urban Studies 49(5):1107–25. (EN)
Rérat, Patrick. 2019. “The Return of Cities: The Trajectory of Swiss Cities from Demographic Loss to Reurbanization.” European Planning Studies 27(2):355–76. (EN)
Salvati, Luca, Pere Serra, Massimiliano Bencardino, and Margherita Carlucci. 2019. “Re-Urbanizing the European City: A Multivariate Analysis of Population Dynamics During Expansion and Recession Times.” European Journal of Population 35(1). (EN)
Sandoval, Gerardo Francisco. 2020. “ Latino Placemaking and Planning: Cultural Resilience and Strategies for Reurbanization , by Jesus J. Lara .” Journal of Urban Affairs. (EN)
Swianiewicz, Pawel, and Sylwia Waruszewska. 2018. “Prace i Studia Geograficzne 2011,.” Prace i Studia Geograficzne 63(3):69–87. (EN)
Špačková, Petra, Nina Dvořáková, and Martina Tobrmanová. 2016. “Residential Satisfaction and Intention To Move: The Case of Prague’S New Suburbanites.” Geografiska Annaler, Series B: Human Geography 98(4):331–48. (EN)
Thalmann, Philippe. 2012. “Housing Market Equilibrium (Almost) without Vacancies.” Urban Studies. (EN)
Theurillat, Thierry, Patrick Rérat, and Olivier Crevoisier. 2015. “The Real Estate Markets: Players, Institutions and Territories.” Urban Studies 52(8):1414–33. (EN)
Zhang, Xiaoling, and Huan Li. 2018. “Urban Resilience and Urban Sustainability: What We Know and What Do Not Know?” Cities 72(December 2016):141–48. (EN)

Recommended reading

Not applicable.

Classification of course in study plans

  • Programme NE_INUS Master's 2 year of study, winter semester, compulsory-optional

Type of course unit

 

Lecture

30 hod., optionally

Teacher / Lecturer

Syllabus

  1. Discussing (concurring) urbanisation – suburbanization and reurbanization.
  2. Urban decline and urban revival – drivers and results on the examples of cases of Leipzig, Liverpool, and Lodz.
  3. Who are the reurbanizers? The role of the individual in the process of urban revival.
  4. Activity of local and state authorities in the process of reurbanization.
  5. Real estate – building cities for people, building cities for profit.
  6. Grassroot social and political activism in reviving districts / cities.

Seminar

30 hod., compulsory

Teacher / Lecturer

Syllabus

  1. Discussing (concurring) urbanisation – suburbanization and reurbanization.
  2. Urban decline and urban revival – drivers and results on the examples of cases of Leipzig, Liverpool, and Lodz.
  3. Who are the reurbanizers? The role of the individual in the process of urban revival.
  4. Activity of local and state authorities in the process of reurbanization.
  5. Real estate – building cities for people, building cities for profit.
  6. Grassroot social and political activism in reviving districts / cities.