RESEARCH ON URBAN SHRINKAGE IN RESOURCE-DEPENDENT ECONOMIES: A BIBLIOMETRIC REVIEW OF SCOPUS-INDEXED LITERATURE

Abstract

This study presents a bibliometric systematic review of the urban shrinkage literature with a focus on resource-dependent, peripheral, and post-socialist territories, using 580 Scopus-indexed documents (1980–2025) analyzed through Biblioshiny. Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, a two-block Boolean search of Scopus yielded 580 documents from 285 sources, authored by 1,150 researchers. Bibliometric analysis included annual scientific production trends, geographic mapping, source and author productivity, keyword co-occurrence, and citation analysis. The dataset covers a timespan of 1980–2026 with an annual growth rate of 2.76%. The field demonstrates exponential growth: 75 articles were published in 2025 alone, compared to 6 in 2010. Research is dominated by China (446 author contributions), the USA (161), and Germany (92), while Central Asia, Africa, and Latin America remain virtually absent. The top publishing venues are Sustainability (36 articles), Cities (24), and European Planning Studies (15). The most globally cited paper is Schilling (2008) with 650 citations. Keyword analysis reveals five thematic clusters: identification and measurement, causes and drivers, environmental consequences, governance responses, and social-housing dynamics. Critically, only ~7% of the corpus addresses resource-dependent territories, and the investment–migration paradox in peripheral economies remains unexamined. This is the first bibliometric review to specifically examine how urban shrinkage literature addresses resource-dependent and peripheral contexts, using comprehensive Biblioshiny analytics to reveal geographic blind spots, methodological gaps, and research agenda priorities for post-Soviet Central Asian economies.