This thesis examines placemaking, urban attachment, city shrinkage, and brain drain using Bilbao, Spain and its professional football club, Athletic Club de Bilbao, as a case study. By showing that opportunity-making contributes to increases in place attachment, it fills a gap in the literature on human outmigration by pointing to a relationship between a professional football club’s local talent retention strategies and urban brain drain. As a rustbelt city that has revived in a postindustrial economy, Bilbao serves as a quintessential example that other rustbelt cities may emulate. A series of qualitative interviews with stakeholders in Bilbao were conducted to gather insights on how a Bilbanian football club manages to retain its local talent. This study’s central question is whether shrinking cities can apply Athletic Club’s placemaking strategies and pridemaking philosophies as models to strengthen urban attachment amongst residents and mitigate brain drain in the urban milieu. The results reveal that local talent recruitment, cultivation, and retention are three vital steps for talent creation, whereby opportunity-making, pride-making, and placemaking are critical elements to help retain talented residents who contribute to the local economy. As the Rustbelt continues to decline both demographically and economically, it will be critical for rustbelt cities to seek ways to retain their local talent.
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