In North America and around the globe, there has been emerging recognition of the size and scope of urban shrinkage, yet little is understood about how decline impacts commercial centers and downtowns. In order to facilitate geographically targeted policymaking, this paper examines the physical patterns of downtown decline in three distinct regions. We seek to test the hypothesis that differences in the process of urban decline in downtown districts vary due to national or historic context. Using statistical analysis and direct observations, we found that while the scale of population decline was greatest in New England, downtowns in both Ontario and Québec have seen substantial decline and have appeared to have better weathered the change with respect to physical signs of decline.

中文翻译：

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不断缩小的市区空置率：魁北克，安大略和新英格兰的比较研究。

在北美和全球范围内，人们逐渐认识到城市萎缩的规模和范围，但人们对衰退对商业中心和市区的影响知之甚少。为了促进针对地理区域的决策，本文研究了三个不同区域的市区衰退的物理模式。我们试图检验以下假设：由于国家或历史背景的原因，市区市区衰落过程的差异会有所不同。通过统计分析和直接观察，我们发现，虽然人口减少的规模在新英格兰最大，但安大略省和魁北克省的市区均出现了大幅下降，并且在物理上的下降迹象方面似乎更能适应变化。