In recent years, urban shrinkage has gained the attention of scholars and policy-makers both in the United States and in Europe. At the annual meeting of the Urban Affairs Association (UAA) in Pittsburgh from 18 to 21 April 2012, a combined session and colloquy discussed ‘European and US Perspectives on Shrinking Cities.’ This was one of many recent events to bridge national debates – for example, sessions at the Association of American Geographers (AAG) conference in New York in February 2012, the International Geographical Congress (IGC) in Cologne in August 2012; see also special issues in IJURR (March 2012) and Bontje and Musterd (2012). The aim of the combined sessions in Pittsburgh was to widen and deepen the understanding of urban shrinkage as a developmental trajectory that has received too little international attention.