Quite apart from the diversity of situations in small and medium-sized towns, stabilising their town centres is a major challenge. In both countries, town centres have been weakened by commercial changes, a decline in the supply of services and transformations in lifestyles. They are...

In both countries, France and Germany, there is great pressure to change and adapt towards new forms of urbanity and to conceive new strategic approaches with limited public finance and a need for economic efficiency. Not all types of urban areas are equally affected by these issues. The book...

While small and medium-sized towns are profoundly rooted in the national territorial narrative (Delpirou, 2013), their role and position in France are not clearly identified, either in terms of territorial planning policy or in the field of academic research. And yet these "intermediate" spaces...