Cities in East Central Europe have been facing profound quantitative and qualitative demographic changes since the 1990s. Declining birth rates, ageing and changes of household compositions on the one hand and the consequences of inter- and intra-regional mobility on the other hand imprint on urban agglomerations. Although the post-socialist city is still predominantly investigated in the context of the growth paradigm, a small-scale approach (e.g. directed on old-industrial towns) makes apparent that the lively debate on "shrinkage" needs to be widened to East Central Europe as well.

At the example of Polish and Czech cities, the project wants to investigate social and spatial consequences of demographic macro- and micro-processes. Based upon West European and East German experience about the close interrelationships between urban development and demographic change, far-reaching impacts on the physical structures, socio-spatial patterns and housing markets are to be expected. The project builds upon theories and results of transition research of the 1990s but aims at expanding the conceptual approach to by now only rarely investigated issues of housing demographics.

Detailed empirical analyses will be carried out in Polish and Czech inner-city areas (e.g. in Gdansk, Lodz, Brno und Ostrava). The project centres on the question, whether demographic changes are already mirrored in the social composition of the areas and which part they play in the emergence of socio-spatial inequalities in comparison with dimensions like social status or ethnic affiliation. A special focus are the so-called "new" household types (like singles, cohabitating couples or unrelated adults sharing a flat) since it is well-known from western research that inner-city areas are in particular appropriate for these households because of their built fabric, central location and the variety of urban amenities. Accordingly, many neighbourhoods in West European and East German core cities experienced profound physical, symbolic and social changes in the past decades. By contrast, inner-city areas in Poland and the Czech Republic have been in a process of long-term decay for several decades. What is more, the housing markets are characterised by strong internal barriers and low mobility. Hence whether demographic shifts will lead to significant urban change at all is an open question.

The project aims at identifying the variety and path dependencies of inner-city developments in East Central Europe. West European and East German experience will be contrasted with these new insights in order to come to a deeper understanding of contemporary urban developments in Europe.