Welcoming, Revitalising, Re-Growing? Refugee Arrival and Urban Development in Shrinking Cities

Refugees are increasingly relocated to shrinking cities, bringing refugee-centred revitalisation as an urban development strategy to the forefront of policy discourse at the migration-development nexus (see Pottie-Sherman, 2018). Including refugees in local revitalisation strategies has social, political, economic, and legal dimensions, which make it important to look beyond statistics of urban growth and decline and analyse local processes. Critically deconstructing refugee-centred revitalisation from the perspective of exiled people arriving in places affected by decline sheds light on the disparities between what cities expect and hope for, and what newcomers experience, and thus expose gaps between what places offer and what refugees need.