This paper presents a general introduction to the role that landscape as a concept, and landscape architecture as a discipline, can have in the academic discussion on Shrinking Cities. This editorial explores and presents a general overview of the causes and impacts of urban depopulation in different world contexts, presenting a brief literature review on this topic. Moreover, it also explores recent population trends around the world and their expected evolution in the next decades, confirming that urban depopulation is worth exploring, especially in certain macro regions such as Europe, North America, and Japan. The paper concludes by focusing on the multiple roles that landscape can have under such pressured urban conditions. The collection of research papers presented in this special issue are the result of a conference that took place at the University of Edinburgh in November 2013, co-chaired by the guest-editors of this special issue.

Urban population decline has been extensively described as a triggering factor for community segregation and fragmentation, as well as for land use vacancy and house/flat vacancies, resulting in rising interest in strategies of green infrastructure expansion aimed at citizens’ wellbeing and urban ecosystems. However, city-scaled green infrastructures can be formed by different typologies of outdoor spaces, providing diverse social affordances that can impact community cohesion and resilience differently. This study focuses on the relationship between preferences for particular outdoor space typologies and for community friendliness, under contexts of urban population decline as a migratory process. In the context of Lisbon, a European capital-city experiencing migration and immigration but also urban population shrinkage in some areas of its metropolitan region, the study used conjoint analysis to test participants’ preference for different attributes of their urban environment. The results showed a significant positive correlation, in the sample living in depopulating neighbourhoods, between preferences for friendlier communities and for outdoor spaces of an enclosed and protected character (r = 0.34), compared with no significant correlation in the studied non-depopulating neighbourhoods. These results do not deny the importance of public parks of wide dimensions as a strategy for shrinking cities’ green infrastructures but suggest that urban citizens living in depopulating neighbourhoods have a higher awareness of the importance of small-scale, enclosed outdoor/green spaces to give a stronger sense of social connectedness. This study contributes to the general literature on urban shrinkage by showing that these sensitive conditions can potentially change behaviour and use of public spaces in urban contexts.

Since Benoit Mandelbrot (1924–2010) coined the term “fractal” in 1975, mathematical theories of fractal geometry have deeply influenced the fields of landscape perception, architecture, and technology. Indeed, their ability to describe complex forms nested within each other, and repeated towards infinity, has allowed the modeling of chaotic phenomena such as weather patterns or plant growth. Some human-designed patterns such as the ones developed by Islamic cultures have been found to follow similar principles of hierarchy, symmetry, and repetition. However, the application of these principles in the design of gardens is an underexplored field. This paper presents a comparative exploration of the four-fold garden design model—the chahár-bágh—typical of Persian and Islamic garden design by analyzing two case studies: Taj Mahal and Isfahan’s city plan. This four-fold pattern is known to not only have a religious reading but to be also linked with ideals of fair distribution. Using an innovative compositional fractal analysis inspired by architecture, our results demonstrate that these gardens contain a high level of self-replication and scale invariance and that they exhibit a high fractal dimension. The novel application of this method of analysis to historical landscape plans allows us to assess to what extent fractal concepts were already in use before the European Renaissance and Mandelbrot’s explorations, and to speculate on their symbolism in the context of Islamic and Persian garden design. Specifically, we conclude that the fractal characteristics of these gardens might be intended as a representation of the infinite divine but also of principles of fairness and equality. Moving forward, this approach could be applied to design spaces, namely in the infrastructural design of the urban fabric, which are both meaningful and environmentally just.

This study focuses on the relative importance for resident’s wellbeing of different attributes of the living environment, namely urban typology, population density, green space type, green space quality, community and security, in the context of urban depopulation. The study used conjoint analysis, a methodology for comparing preferences, in three neighbourhoods in the Portuguese capital city. A total of 130 participants were recruited to take part in this study, based on whether their residential neighbourhood was growing in population (N = 49) or depopulating (N = 44); or whether they were searching for a new house at the moment (N = 37). The results showed that residents of depopulating neighbourhoods value the presence of a friendly community more than the other participants and were less negative about high population densities. House buyers valued environments with good quality green spaces significantly more than the other two groups. These findings suggest that a friendlier community and the quality of its green spaces are key attributes in encouraging current dwellers to remain, and in attracting new residents to move in. These two attributes are known to be relevant factors for overall citizens’ quality of life, health and wellbeing; they should, therefore, be given particular consideration in any intervention in depopulating contexts.

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