Literature Review The Causes of City Centre Decline It can be rather difficult to determine the particular reasons why some city centres and areas go into decline and the others do not. The causes of urban decay may be various and multiple. Many researchers have focused on this issue in their studies. As noticed by Hasse et al. (2014), the problem is usually approached based on the following three aspects: a) the identification of the causes of decline; b) the description of mechanisms according to which the cities shrink; and c) the discussion of responses. Due to the complexity of the issue, many researchers choose to explore its various dimensions working within particular disciplines. As a result, the body of literature that would cover the problem fully is rather small. Exploring the nature and causes of city centre decline, Moses and Gale (2001) propose reviewing it within eight different dimensions – social, cultural or historical, physical, political, behavioural, design, economic, and environmental. For better clarity, each of the dimensions will be presented in a separate section with a heading. Social Dimension According to Clark (1989), urban decay occurs under the influence of powerful and inevitable social processes; unfortunately, the life-cycle of a city centre has its stages that gradually destroy Western cities. As a result of the decline, many big cities have a tendency to lose their population (Clark 1989; ADA 2013). This phenomenon is currently characterised as “the white flight”, the movement of population from the city centre to the suburbs that impacts the demographic composition of the population (in terms of race, ethnicity, and social status) along with its size (Frey 1979). The change in the population density, composition, and size along with the attitudes of the residents to the area are recognised as the key factors that enable the decline (Hasse et al. 2014; Moses & Gale 2001). That way, the residents are to be educated about the processes that speed up the decay of the city centre and encouraged to participate in support programs for the area (Burayidi 2001). Urban decay has a progressive character. Its development gradually forces the representatives of the middle class out of the city while the population that remains is disadvantaged with rather low-income (McCarty 1997). The reduced paying capacity of the residents eventually led to the decline of high-quality maintenance services that prevent the living areas from decay (Moses & Gale 2001). Over time, the concentration of impoverished and homeless population resulted in the downfall of the community power, the decline of the vital services, waste of resources and the decay of multiple districts (Shore 1995; McCarthy 1997; Gibson 2004). As a result, an effective method of addressing urban decay from the social perspective is the creation of responsible communities with considerate attitudes to their areas and environments, and a sufficient level of income to support the district in which they dwell (The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 2013). Economic Dimension In terms of the correlation between the city centre decline and the economic decay, the phenomenon of industrialisati