To give a bit more specificity, broad economic changes often create shifts in urban economic geography. The changes in the Late Medieval economy, for example, leading to the transformation of the Cotswolds from a thriving economic center to a rather sleepy rural area. I noticed that the city rankings of England changed pretty dramatically between 1750 and 1850 (Norwich and Bath, for example, were among the largest in the eighteenth century) and am curious whether the change only came about because of the rise of the northern cities, or if there was a concomitant depression in other cities.
I'm specifically referring to England but am interested in other areas.
It's not quite the same, but there are some parallels. Most of older Medieval or Early Modern trading centers in Britain didn't actually lose population, but certainly stagnated at a time when some other urban centers like London and Manchester were growing very rapidly. Manchester especially grew from around 18,000 people in 1750 to around 100,000 people by 1815.
For example, Nottingham and Edinburgh remained fairly prosperous but didn't see quite the same levels of explosive in the 19th century that some other urban centers like Glasgow and Sheffield did.
Part of this is that some cities were poorly positioned to take advantage of new source of waterpower and coal -- Lincoln and Norich is firmly in this category. Ipswich and quite a few other towns in East Anglia and Kent became less essential as trade arteries as the construction of canals and railroads made it easier to move goods overland to larger coastal entrepots, especially London, that provided better access to global markets.