Shrinking cities and sustainability Deindustrialization and urban shrinkage. Achieving urban sustainability in former industrial cities in France: the case studies of Nantes and Saint-Ouen Varvara Toura 1 1 Géographie-Cités/Ecole doctorale de l'EHESS, Paris, France, valiatoura@gmail.com Abstract: Population decline in former industrial cities is an undeniable fact and preparing to respond to it is a necessity. In my research urban sustainability is defined as a process to recover from social and economic recession which are usually linked to deindustrialization. The main goal is to survey how Nantes and Saint-Ouen became resilient after the period of deindustrialization and if they have the needed capacities of urban sustainability in dealing with population decline. The research method is descriptive-analytic. The descriptive method is used in order to define urban sustainability and relate it to previous studies in shrinking cities. The analytic method is used in order to identify the reasons that led to the population decline and the correlations between sustainable urban development and demographic evolution. The performed analyses included a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. The outcome revealed that the two cities have reached the goal of sustainable urban development as they almost doubled their population since 2000. The final conclusion is that the urban policies implemented by local authorities as long as the economic decisions taken by local enterprises can assist Nantes and Saint-Ouen inhabitants to encounter to social and economic recession resulting from deindustrialization. Keywords: shrinking city, population decline, sustainable urban development, urban resilience Introduction Urban resilience like sustainable development is a multi-dimensional approach that refers to economic development, social cohesion and environmental protection. In the context of former industrial cities achieving urban resilience seeks to increase the number of city's inhabitants and at the same time develop a new balanced city model. A city is considered as sustainable and resilient when not only achieves the goals of sustainable development, but also when it takes measures against possible crisis (like significant population decline) or, when it is needed, manages crisis that have arisen. The crisis that a city can face include not only the population decline but also issues related to the organization and administration of the city like social cohesion, economic growth and environmental protection. In this research, the cities of Nantes and Saint-Ouen have been chosen as case studies for their population decline as a consequence of the local deindustrialization. The research tries to survey how the urban resilience policies implemented by local authorities in the two cities contributed to significant population increase especially since 2000. From the municipal archives of the two cities we can see that the closure of local industries in the late 1980's led to a population decline but since the