As shrinking cities scholarship has matured over the past two decades, the term shrinking cities has evolved into an overarching concept encompassing a broad range of geographic, cultural, and disciplinary diversity. As the breadth of the shrinking cities discourse has grown, the field has been simultaneously critiqued for being overly inclusive and oversimplifying the dynamic nature of shrinking cities and for a lack of cohesion among fragmented methodological and conceptual approaches. Rather than attempt to advance a universal definition or splinter into geographic or discipline-specific silos, there is an opportunity to expand the range of accepted definitions and measurements to reflect the diversity of contexts and subfields within the shrinking cities discourse. Examining six shrinking city indicators in the U.S. context, this article (1) determines the prevalence, severity, persistence, and geographical incidence of the shrinking cities captured by each of the indicators; (2) demonstrates the hierarchical nature of the shrinking city indicators; and (3) analyzes the characteristics of the shrinking cities captured by each indicator by comparing key economic, socioeconomic, and demographic variables. The analysis of the indicators demonstrates the elasticity of shrinking cities and provides methodological guidance for future shrinking cities research.

在过去的二十年中，随着城市萎缩的学术研究日趋成熟，“城市萎缩”这个词已经发展成为涵盖广泛的地理，文化和学科多样性的总体概念。随着不断缩小的城市讨论范围的扩大，人们同时批评该领域过于包容，过分简化了不断缩小的城市的动态性质，以及在零散的方法论和概念方法之间缺乏凝聚力。与其尝试将通用定义或分解为特定于地理或学科的孤岛，不如扩大机会，以扩大公认的定义和度量的范围，以反映不断缩小的城市话语中上下文和子领域的多样性。本文研究了在美国背景下六项不断缩小的城市指标，确定了其流行程度，严重性，持久性，每个指标所反映的不断缩小的城市的地理发生率；（2）展示了不断缩小的城市指标的等级性质；（3）通过比较关键的经济，社会经济和人口统计学变量，分析每个指标所反映的萎缩城市的特征。各项指标的分析证明了萎缩城市的弹性，并为今后的萎缩城市研究提供了方法论指导。