Martin Sustrik

It's the first image that comes to mind when you picture a shrinking city.

But as the population declines, ever fewer people live in the same housing stock and water consumption declines.

The water sits in oversized pipes.

It stagnates and chlorine dissipates.

Bacteria move in, creating health risks.

You can tear down an abandoned house in a week.

But you cannot easily downsize a city's pipe network.

The infrastructure is buried under streets and buildings.

The cost of ripping it out and replacing it with smaller pipes would bankrupt a city that is already bleeding residents and tax revenue.

As the population shrinks, problems like this become ubiquitous.

The common instinct is to fight decline with growth.

Launch a tourism campaign.

Build a theme park or a tech incubator.

Offer subsidies and tax breaks to young families willing to move in.

Subsidize childcare.

Sell houses for one euro, as some Italian towns do.

Well, Yubari tried this.

After the coal mines closed, the city pivoted to tourism, opening a coal-themed amusement park, a fossil museum and a ski resort.

They organized a film festival.

Celebrities came and left.