National Study of Shrinking Patterns in Estonia
For the first time, Estonia gathered flat-level electricity data nationwide to map building vacancy — revealing that shrinkage isn’t just an East Estonia problem, and that a third of the country’s municipalities have vacancy rates above 15%.
The 2020 pilot proved electricity consumption data could reliably measure building vacancy in one region. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications wanted to know: does the same picture hold true nationally, and where exactly is Estonia most vulnerable?
Financed by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications in 2021, scaling up the methodology SPIN Unit and TalTech developed during the 2020 pilot. Findings were presented as a keynote at an OECD event.
Over seven months, the team worked closely with the Ministry, Statistics Estonia, and the Estonian Data Protection Agency to collect, validate, aggregate, and categorise vacancy data for apartment buildings and single-family houses — the first time this had been done at flat level, nationally. The project leaned heavily on static and interactive cartography to make the resulting data meaningful to policymakers and the joint Ministry of Finance / Ministry of Economic Affairs steering group.
Delivered as a full Estonian report, an English summary, an English presentation, and extensive per-municipality annexes of maps, charts, and tables covering all of Estonia.
National Shrinking Cities study – English summary
