From industrial specialization to diverging urban trajectories: Industrial legacies and population change in Czech large cities since the late 1980s

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between industrial legacies and demographic trajectories in the large Czech cities after 1990. The analysis is based on a dataset of 26 cities with more than 45000 inhabitants, combining data on the development of industrial employment and population changes from the turn of the 1980s and 1990s to the present. Industrial structures were aggregated into five sectoral categories and compared with demographic development using statistical methods (Spearman’s correlation, boxplots, Webb’s diagram). The results show a significant association between long-term industrial trajectories and demographic outcomes. Cities historically dominated by machinery and electrical industries have experienced more stable or growing populations, while those dependent on heavy industries such as mining and metallurgy have undergone substantial decline. The findings demonstrate the persistence of path dependency in urban development, linking economic specialization before 1989 with post-socialist demographic shrinkage. The study highlights the importance of industrial legacy for understanding regional disparities in Central Europe and provides empirical evidence for debates on deindustrialization, shrinking cities, and post-socialist urban restructuring.