Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject Geography / Earth Science - Demographics, Urban Management, Planning, grade: 1,3, Lund University (Soziology), course: Institutional Change, language: English, abstract: This paper is going to deal with the issue of economic and demographic city shrinking, which is occurring in nearly every country in this world. This issue is discussed not only by urban planners, politicians and sociologist, but is also of high interest for psychologist, economist etc. and an example of change as well as negative development, getting dramatically worse. On the other hand there are cities that are flourishing and seem to attract people. This paper will give theoretical information towards the supreme place to live; on the contrary it will show the case of a shrinking city in eastern Germany.