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Topic · Urban Studies

Urbanization and City Planning

Urbanization and City Planning is a research topic within Urban Studies. Science Explorer counts 24k research works in it since 1950. 10.5% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers explores the phenomenon of urban shrinkage, particularly in post-socialist contexts, analyzing the causes, effects, and policy responses to population loss, vacant land management, suburbanization, and socio-spatial disparities. It delves into the challenges and opportunities for sustainable development in declining cities and examines the dynamics of reurbanization and demographic change.

  • Shrinking Cities
  • Urban Decline
  • Post-Socialist Urbanism
  • Socio-Spatial Disparities
  • Vacant Land Management
  • Suburbanization
  • Population Loss
  • Resilient Urban Transition
  • Housing Abandonment
  • Sustainability in Declining Cities
Research works
24k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
2.5k
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.5%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+6%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
China
19% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Urbanization and City Planning

Which countries lead Urbanization and City Planning research?

By volume, China and the United States publish the most (573 and 526 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China 573 works
  2. 2 United States 526 works
  3. 3 Poland 355 works
  4. 4 Germany 354 works
  5. 5 Russia 269 works
  6. 6 United Kingdom 252 works
  7. 7 Japan 201 works
  8. 8 Italy 176 works
  9. 9 France 131 works
  10. 10 Hungary 117 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

China: 19.4%United States: 17.8%Poland: 12.0%Germany: 12.0%6 others listed: 38.8%19%largest
China573 · 19.4%United States526 · 17.8%Poland355 · 12.0%Germany354 · 12.0%6 others listed1,146 · 38.8%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Urbanization and City Planning research?

By volume in 2022-now, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique publishes the most Urbanization and City Planning research, followed by Sapienza University of Rome and Russian Academy of Sciences.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 46 works
  2. 2 Sapienza University of RomeItaly 41 works
  3. 3 Russian Academy of SciencesRussia 40 works
  4. 4 Politecnico di MilanoItaly 34 works
  5. 5 Leibniz AssociationGermany 29 works
  6. 6 Adam Mickiewicz University in PoznańPoland 28 works
  7. 7 TU WienAustria 26 works
  8. 8 University of WarsawPoland 26 works
  9. 9 Polish Academy of SciencesPoland 25 works
  10. 10 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 25 works

Who are the leading researchers in Urbanization and City Planning?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Urbanization and City Planning include Rob Knight, Anselm L. Strauss and F. Stuart Chapin.

  1. 1 Rob Knight United States 468k citations
  2. 2 Anselm L. Strauss United States 205k citations
  3. 3 F. Stuart Chapin United States 185k citations
  4. 4 Michael E. Porter United States 165k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Urbanization and City Planning?

The most cited paper in Urbanization and City Planning is "A Computer Movie Simulating Urban Growth in the Detroit Region" (Waldo Tobler, 1970), with 9,808 citations. Next come "Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things" (4,757) and "The revenge of the places that don’t matter (and what to do about it)" (2,175).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 A Computer Movie Simulating Urban Growth in the Detroit Region Waldo Tobler · Economic Geography Jun 1970 9,808
2 Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things Mark Jackson · Emotion, space and society 20 Nov 2010 4,757
3 The revenge of the places that don’t matter (and what to do about it) Andrés Rodríguez‐Pose · Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society Open access 29 Dec 2017 2,175
4 Why landscapes of the past are important for the future Marc Antrop · Landscape and Urban Planning 24 Dec 2003 1,513
5 Ordinary cities: between modernity and development Azat Zana Gündoğan, Martin J. Murray · Cultural Geographies 2007 1,477
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Urbanization and City Planning research done?

The largest centres of Urbanization and City Planning research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Moscow (Russia), Warsaw (Poland) and Budapest (Hungary). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Tirana, Dortmund and Vilnius.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 124 works
  2. 2 MoscowRussia 110 works
  3. 3 WarsawPoland 91 works
  4. 4 BudapestHungary 70 works
  5. 5 TokyoJapan 66 works
  6. 6 LondonUnited Kingdom 65 works
  7. 7 ViennaAustria 58 works
  8. 8 RomeItaly 49 works
  9. 9 ShanghaiChina 49 works
  10. 10 ParisFrance 48 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. TiranaAL · 22.0 works21×
  2. DortmundDE · 29.5 works18×
  3. VilniusLT · 31.4 works12×
  4. ŁódźPL · 34.4 works12×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Urbanization and City Planning than the world average.

See Urbanization and City Planning on the map

Where is the best place to study Urbanization and City Planning?

Among universities, judged by research, Sapienza University of Rome, Politecnico di Milano and University of Amsterdam score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%20%40%60%mean 22.72%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Sun Yat-sen UniversityUniversity of Amster…Politecnico di MilanoSapienza University …
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Sapienza University of RomeItaly 63.88.2%8.8×41 +552.9%
2Politecnico di MilanoItaly 60.69.9%11.8×34 +48.8%
3University of AmsterdamNetherlands 60.434.0%5.3×13 +9.3%
4Sun Yat-sen UniversityChina 56.753.1%1.2×10 +54.9%
5TU WienAustria 54.75.1%21.6×26 +126.7%
6University College LondonUnited Kingdom 54.320.9%3.5×22 -6.9%
7Zhejiang UniversityChina 53.533.8%1.3×13 +409.7%
8TU Dortmund UniversityGermany 51.014.2%17.1×17 +122.6%
9Seoul National UniversitySouth Korea 49.437.2%2.2×10 +44.4%
10Aalborg UniversityDenmark 49.110.8%8.0×18 +98.5%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Urbanization and City Planning, country by country

Is Urbanization and City Planning research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 6% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2024. The fastest-growing topics are Urbanization and City Planning.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Urbanization and City Planning as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.021% in 2024.

still counting0.020%0.040%0.060%Urbanization and City Planning0.019% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Urbanization and City Planning over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Urbanization and City Planning10.5% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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