The New American Small Town

As we question the future of the city, the small town urban form is often seen as a model for the compact, walkable, sustainable neighbourhood. While some see the small town as dying, the ideal and the myth of these places remains an important part of how we think about community and what human settlements should look like. The American small town is portrayed, in popular media as well as in the new urbanist design movement, as possessing the best qualities of urban life: the urban village and the open countryside.

This book will reconsider this portrayal by describing national trends in small cities and investigating local experiences. It will expand upon the relatively sparse literature on small towns by placing the small town in an urban context. To plan for a more sustainable future, small towns need to be recategorized - not as rural, isolated, and static, but as connected and dynamic urban places.