This book project highlights creative approaches to planning and local development. The dynamic complexity, diversity and fluidity which characterize contemporary society represent challenges for planning and development endeavours. While research and policy work has extensively focused on large cities and on metropolitan regions, there has been relatively little work on smaller places .

This book shows that if these new challenges affect all places and regions, small and medium-sized towns (SMSTs) are suffering many specific problems that call imperatively for the design and...