Shrinking world, fewer spaces

One of the truisms of this blog is that the effects of population decline will be seen unevenly throughout the world. Perhaps it is a corollary that some of these post-growth effects will be seen even in places where the population is rising. Superstar cities, with their infrastructure and amenities, will be able to attract a working-age population even as the national population continues to decline. It's not clear that new residents will bring children, though, especially given the higher cost of housing in urban areas. This is the case despite the fact that many cities are, arguably, more amenable to family formation than they were two decades ago (with the re-discovery of the walkable community). Here1 is an article from last week's Financial Times about what becomes of a city when the demographic pyramid begins to look like a diamond: [I]t’s not just that fewer children are being born, many are moving away. In the UK, eight of the 10 fastest-shrinking boroughs for primary school…