Introduction SECTION 1: Small Towns: Theoretical Background and Research Issues
1. The Functions and Local Linkages of Small Towns: A Review of Selected Classifications and Approaches to Research
2. Small Towns in Settlement Systems: A Return to the Foreground?
3. Small Towns: Theoretical Background and Research Issues ? Perspectives from the United States
4. Small Towns: Theoretical Background and Research Issues. Exploring the Diversity of Small Towns in France
5. Spanish Small Towns: Evolution, Functional Structure, and Characterisation
6. Determining Villages’ Status and Their Economic Functions: The Case of Mongolia SECTION 2: The Role and Significance of Small Towns in Socio-Economic Development
7. The Small Romanian Towns: From Creative Destruction to Destructive Creation and Back?
8. From Informal to Formal: Towards the Sustainable Transformation of Small Towns in Africa
9. Small, but Resilient: A Case Study of the Town of Utazu, Kagawa, Japan
10. The Natural and Migration Movements Versus Population Ageing in Poland’s Small Towns
11. Performance of Small Towns in an Economically Lagging Region: A Case Study of the Spi? Region, Slovakia
12. Small Towns in the Energy Transition Era: Local Drivers for Climate Change Adaptation?
13. Contemporary Status of Small Towns in Bulgaria: Functions and Role in the Development of Rural Regions SECTION 3: Small Towns in Rural Space
14. Changing Urban?Rural Relations in Israel’s Periphery
15. Urban?Rural Linkages: An Inquiry into Second-Home Tourism in the Nordics
16. New Rural?Urban Relationships of Small Towns in North-Western Germany
17. Small Regional Centres at the Periphery of Switzerland: Porrentruy and Brig-Glis
18. Small Towns in Rural Space: The Case of Czechia
19. Urban Growth Engines or Relational Proximity? What Can We Learn From Enterprise Population and Business Demography Indicators in the Context of Rural and Small-Town Scotland?
20. The Role of Farmers in Small-Town Community Development in an Age of Austerity: Reflections from Australasia
21. Agri-Food Workers: Transnational Connections in Small Towns and Rural Areas SECTION 4: The Small Towns Planning Challenges
22. Inter-Municipal Spatial Planning as a Tool to Prevent Small-Town Competition: The Case of the Emilia-Romagna Region
23. Ukrainian Small Cities in the Perspective of Sustainable Spatial Planning
24. Small Town Survival in Rural Australia: A New England Case Study
25. Technologies of Government and Policy Implementation in Small Towns Economic Development Plans in Mpumalanga, South Africa
26. Small Towns in the Planning System: The Experience of the United States
27. Disturbing the Creation of a Spatial System: Outside Intervention and Urbanization in the Republic of the Marshall Islands
28. Challenges of Local Planning in Peruvian Small Towns: The Example of Alexander von Humboldt Town in the Amazonian Basin