EUKN - European Urban Knowledge Network - The impact of demographic change on local and regional government

The impact of demographic change on local and regional government

Introduction

The impact of demographic changes will differ from city to city and from region to region. But they influence nearly every sphere of life: labour markets, housing markets, social security systems, infrastructure, urban/spatial planning, education, budgets and finances.

Description

The study examines local authorities of different sizes in four countries:

the Czech Republic;
Finland;
Germany;
Spain.

It describes the challenges that municipalities face in different European countries, in different spatial contexts and the measures to be taken in response to demographic changes (low birth rate, decline of population, ageing/longevity, migration).

The measures and case studies documented in this study cover different categories of municipalities: a city with more than 500,000 inhabitants, a medium-sized city (around 50,000 inhabitants), a rural municipality and a small county.

The research focuses on four important policy fields:

social services;
spatial planning (especially housing and transport);
employment and social inclusion;
local community activities.

Background information

Institutional settings in the four countries differ distinctly. In Finland all legislation is decided by Parliament, there are no local authorities that can pass their own laws. But municipalities in Finland do have considerable independence in organising local services. Germany, in contrast, has one of the politically and functionally strongest local government systems in Europe with a comparatively high degree of local autonomy.

Methodology

The information basis for the study is mainly an internet document search (search engines, list of keywords, links). One consequence of internet-based information inquiry is that municipalities and projects not documented on the internet are excluded from the survey. The second source was direct contacts with experts and officials in the selected countries. Gaps in the case study documentation regarding categories of municipalities or policy fields do not necessarily mean that there is no project at all. They merely indicate that the chosen methods and instruments under the given time constraints failed to capture any. All web-based documents quoted in the report were downloaded in November and December 2005.

EU involvement

The research was partially financed by the European Commission.

Conclusions

Demographic change and the discussion on how to deal with it is not only a complex issue but also a politically and emotionally highly charged subject.
The political debate on ageing focuses more on its costs for the social insurance system rather than on its social and even economic potentials. This is the case in all the countries under study.
The shrinking of cities is not a new phenomenon and occurs in the countries under study. But in East Germany, a natural decline of population (collapse of the fertility rate after German unification) is compounded by a sustained and extensive outmigration to West Germany. Some cities have lost more than 20 to 25% of inhabitants since 1990.
Only few local authorities are proceeding systematically by adopting an integrative strategic approach taking account of all the different and interlocking elements of demographic change. Much remains to be done for local and regional authorities.

Contact info

Council of European Municipalities and Regions, tel. + 32 2 511 09 49

Publication date

01/05/2006

Researcher

Dr B. Hollbach-Grömig and Dipl.-Soz. J. Trapp

Links

Council of European Municipalities and Regions

The impact of demographic change on local and regional government (PDF, Eng, 220 KB)

Document type

research

Themes

Urban Policy > Urban environment > Land use

Keywords

Suburbanisation