Neil Powe

Original and insightful, this volume, giving in-depth consideration to the key issues affecting the future of market towns, provides readers with a framework for evaluating policy initiatives and progress in market towns. Through a detailed analysis of the characteristics of over 200 towns and in-depth studies of eleven towns in different parts of England, the authors identify and explore a number of key roles for market towns. Such as: retirement towns commuter towns employment centres service centres tourist towns. Setting the results in the context of past and current policy, they consider in more detail some of the critical issues, including increased personal mobility, aging populations, housing growth and affordability, employment and retail competitiveness. Drawing on this detailed case study material, a final section explores the future role of market towns as sustainable communities and how they might best assure their futures. Addressing issues which have not yet been covered in contemporary planning literature, this comprehensive volume provides a wide-ranging discussion that will appeal to those involved at all levels of practice related to market towns as well as to academics and students working in both rural and urban geography and planning.

Roles, challenges and prospects

Market Towns

Trevor Hart

Change is inevitable in all communities: they both grow and decline. Planning is a means by which we have sought to manage this change. It has not always succeeded in providing the types of settlements and environments which many residents and others want, either because it is operating with the wrong policies or because it is failing to ensure that the right policies are effectively implemented. These failings have opened planning to criticism by a dominant neoliberal orthodoxy which shapes an increasingly difficult environment in which planning has to operate. Planning for Small Town Change builds on an underexploited selection of international research and the authors’ English case studies to consider the efficacy of planning for change. Drawing on insightful small town experiences, three themes emerge: understanding and conceptualising change; appreciating the potential within place; and the mechanisms for planning and delivery. The research draws on many examples of how key actors have made a significant difference to specific places and provides important insights into how the planning process can be better matched to the long-term and complex challenges faced. Whilst small town experiences are often neglected, they are found to be particularly insightful in understanding the potential roles of local communities and the importance of place quality when planning for change.

Neil Powe

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