Small and mid-sized suburban towns house two-thirds of the world’s population and current modes of planning for these municipalities are facing challenges of both philosophy and form. Common approaches that have prevailed in past decades no longer sustain new demands and require innovative thinking. Rather than dismissing small and mid-sized towns as unattractive suburban sprawl, Planning Small and Mid-Sized Towns offers ideas and methods on how small isolated and edge towns can be designed and retooled into sustainable, affordable and adaptable communities. Coverage includes: the evolution of small towns mobility and connectivity neighborhood and sustainable dwelling design town centers and urban renewal economic sustainability and wealth generation, and more. With numerous case studies from North America and Europe and over 150 color photographs, maps, and illustrations, Planning Small and Mid-Sized Towns is a valuable, practical resource for professional planners and urban designers, as well as students in these disciplines.

Small and mid-sized suburban towns house two-thirds of the world’s population and current modes of planning for these municipalities are facing challenges of both philosophy and form. Common approaches that have prevailed in past decades no longer sustain new demands and require innovative thinking. Rather than dismissing small and mid-sized towns as unattractive suburban sprawl, Planning Small and Mid-Sized Towns offers ideas and methods on how small isolated and edge towns can be designed and retooled into sustainable, affordable and adaptable communities. Coverage includes: the evolution of small towns mobility and connectivity neighborhood and sustainable dwelling design town centers and urban renewal economic sustainability and wealth generation, and more. With numerous case studies from North America and Europe and over 150 color photographs, maps, and illustrations, Planning Small and Mid-Sized Towns is a valuable, practical resource for professional planners and urban designers, as well as students in these disciplines.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. It is free to read, download and share on Elgaronline.com. Exploring current debates on the topic, this book maps out an agenda for theory, research and practice about the role and function of small and medium-sized towns in various contexts and at different territorial scales. Chapters highlight new insights and approaches to studying small and medium-sized towns, moving beyond the ‘urban bias’ to provide nuanced thought on these spaces both in terms of their relation to larger cities, and in terms of implications related to their size.

First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A new way forward for sustainable quality of life in cities of all sizes Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Build American Prosperity is a book of forward-thinking ideas that breaks with modern wisdom to present a new vision of urban development in the United States. Presenting the foundational ideas of the Strong Towns movement he co-founded, Charles Marohn explains why cities of all sizes continue to struggle to meet their basic needs, and reveals the new paradigm that can solve this longstanding problem. Inside, you’ll learn why inducing growth and development has been the conventional response to urban financial struggles—and why it just doesn’t work. New development and high-risk investing don’t generate enough wealth to support itself, and cities continue to struggle. Read this book to find out how cities large and small can focus on bottom-up investments to minimize risk and maximize their ability to strengthen the community financially and improve citizens’ quality of life. Develop in-depth knowledge of the underlying logic behind the “traditional” search for never-ending urban growth Learn practical solutions for ameliorating financial struggles through low-risk investment and a grassroots focus Gain insights and tools that can stop the vicious cycle of budget shortfalls and unexpected downturns Become a part of the Strong Towns revolution by shifting the focus away from top-down growth toward rebuilding American prosperity Strong Towns acknowledges that there is a problem with the American approach to growth and shows community leaders a new way forward. The Strong Towns response is a revolution in how we assemble the places we live.

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 implementation of very imaginative, creative approaches to planning and local development. What could enhance creativity in local development and planning? Is it possible to talk about creative capacity building at the level of a town that might release imaginative and innovative activities? Under what local and non-local conditions is creativity being initiated and flourishing? What are the major obstacles and in what way can these be contained in order to safeguard pockets of creative action? Interdisciplinary and with case studies from France, Norway and other European countries, this volume presents a wide range of approaches and territorial contexts of small cities and towns in which spatial dynamics and the consequences of the city-region for urban planning theory and practice in Europe are highlighted, with a special focus on the challenges for - and understanding of - planning and development of SMSTs. It provides a significant body of critical, comparative and contextual perspectives on the quest for urban sustainability and resilience in SMSTs, therefore emphasizing collaborative and potentially innovative approaches that can be detected, but also the shortcomings, pitfalls and 'traps' that can lie behind the approaches aimed at concerting ecological, economic, and socio-cultural concerns, and the discourses promoting them.

The book introduces challenges affecting smaller urban communities with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants and offers urban planning and building/architectural strategies to strengthen their city centers. It divides urban renewal of small towns into sub-components such as environmental challenges, demographic trends, economic changes and cultural aspects, and aging infrastructure. In each, context is established, and principles are outlined and illustrated. Topics include urban form, mobility and connectivity, infill neighborhoods design, wealth generation, and promotion of local culture and well‐being. Reinforced with detailed case studies, Fundamentals of Sustainable Urban Renewal in Small and Mid‐Sized Towns is an ideal resource for municipal planners, architects, civil engineers, and policy makers.

This open access book revisits the theoretical foundations of urban planning and the application of these concepts and methods in the context of Southern countries by examining several case studies from different regions of the world. For instance, the case of Koudougou, a medium-sized city in one of the poorest countries in the world, Burkina Faso, with a population of 115.000 inhabitants, allows us to understand concretely which and how these deficiencies are translated in an African urban context. In contrast, the case of Nueve de Julio, intermediate city of 50.000 dwellers in the pampa Argentina, addresses the new forms of spatial fragmentation and social exclusion linked with agro export and crisis of the international markets. Case studies are also included for cities in Asia and Latin America. Differences and similarities between cases allow us to foresee alternative models of urban planning better adapted to tackle poverty and find efficient ways for more inclusive cities in developing and emerging countries, interacting several dimensions linked with high rates of urbanization: territorial fragmentation; environmental contamination; social disparities and exclusion, informal economy and habitat, urban governance and democracy.

The analytical tools and practical examples provided by Schlappa and Nishino are relevant for political and administrative decisionmakers, leaders of civil society and business organisations in developing locally appropriate, creative and robust strategies to shrink smart and re-grow smaller.

For the past 150 years, architecture has been a significant tool in the hands of city planners and leaders. In Creating Cities/Building Cities, Peter Karl Kresl and Daniele Ietri illustrate how these planners and leaders have utilized architecture to achieve a variety of aims, influencing the situation, perception and competitiveness of their cities.