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For a good part of the U.S. system of federalism municipal incorporation has been the formal structure for local communities. Over the last 60 years there has been a shift in this structure to special district government. The Woodlands, Texas presents an interesting case study on the incremental development of a former New Town community, the change in formal government organization and the potential for a different model of local governance structure in the 21st Century. The authors explore the four stages of development for The Woodlands over the past 40 years and assess this development through several model theories including institutional, urban regime, and urban governance. Contrary to some current literature on governance, The Woodlands appears to have transitioned from decentralization to more centralization while at the same time avoiding full incorporation as a municipality. It may be indicative of the new governance.

During the past 30 years the balance between retail development in “out of town” as opposed to “town centre” locations has been a recurrent theme in retail planning policy debates and policy initiatives within the UK. This paper reviews the continuing growth and diversification of out‐of‐town retail development and draws attention to the recent investment in retail services complexes in out‐of‐town sites. A brief outline of changing central government thinking suggests an increasingly restrictive approach to new out‐of‐town retail development coupled with a policy commitment to “put town centres first”. The paper then offers some illustrative examples of town centre management initiatives in Leicester, Leeds and Manchester, and concludes with a brief discussion of some of the issues surrounding the “in town – out‐of‐town debate”.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how different notions about the conservation of built heritage develop in a situation of structural change that demands either the demolition or relocation of a large number of historic buildings.

The analysis is based on a case study of the on-going urban transformation of the Swedish mining town Kiruna. The investigation was based on the text analysis of urban planning documents and media reporting, which was used to distinguish stakeholders’ positions towards conservation based on authenticity aspects.

The conservation goals of the urban planning process are unclear and the stakeholders have conceptually different views regarding which parts of the town’s built heritage are of significance, which negatively affects the ability to make well informed, transparent and intelligible management decisions. Stakeholder views on the management of built heritage span from the relocation of a few, single historic buildings to maintaining the integrity of the town as a heritage site by moving a significant number of buildings.

The Kiruna case, being exceptional because conservation in situ is impossible, has the potential to highlight the relation between single historic buildings and the integrity of an urban heritage site, as well as implications for conservation on the urban scale.

This investigation contributes to knowledge of built heritage in situations of structural change, which is of concern for planning and conservation practice. Currently, many urban areas are under pressure of transformations or destruction.

The purpose of this paper is to present the background to the development of the World Towns’ Framework, developed in June 2016 at the inaugural World Towns Leadership Summit in Scotland. The paper also provides an academic underpinning to the four pillars of the agreement; a unique sense of identity and place, economy, leadership and citizenship and environment. It ends with a call to action for practitioners, policymakers and organisations providing support to people in places who want to contribute to the development of the Framework and adopt it.

The paper is divided into four sections. The first section gives the background to the development of the World Towns Framework. The second section publishes the World Towns Framework in its entirety. The third section builds an evidence-base for the components or pillars of the World Towns Framework, based upon work undertaken by the think tanks and academic partners involved in its development. The final section sets out a call for action – explaining how the Framework can be further developed and utilised.

The paper contains three main contributions. It articulates a new narrative for towns, neighbourhoods and city districts in responding to contemporary urban challenges; it shapes a new urban agenda for these urban places and it asserts the need for new alliances and approaches essential for a strong competitive economy, which is more inclusive of towns and smaller places, combined with a fairer, more equal society.

The evidence base for the research is limited to the work that has been carried out by the academic institutions and think tanks that supported the development of the World Towns’ Framework.

The practical implication of the World Towns Framework are a shared understanding of how towns and smaller places can engage in management, development and marketing practices that will lead to a stronger economy and fairer society.

The focus upon place uniqueness and identity, a more equitable economy, a greener and cleaner environment and stronger place leadership and citizenship can lead to better, fairer and more liveable places.

This is the first attempt to develop a World Towns Framework to shape urban change outside of cities and metropoles.

Communities of work are a phenomenon closely associated with government social and industrial policy, and can be tracked in contemporary examples globally alongside industrial development. The purpose of this paper is to explore community identity within a town which was previously single industry, but has since experienced workforce reduction and to a large degree, industry withdrawal.

Using an inductive approach, the researchers interviewed 32 participants who had resided (past or present) within the instrumental case study town. A thematic analytical framework, drawing on the work of Boje (2007) was employed.

A significant theme to emerge from the participants was the public assertion of social cohesion and belonging. However, what was interesting, was that beneath this unified exterior, lay accounts of multiple forms of demarcation. Drawing on Benedict Anderson’s (1983) notion of the imagined community, and Bauman’s (2001) identity in globalisation, this contradiction is conceptualised as boundary-making moments of identification and disidentification.

This research is specific to the New Zealand context, although holds many points of interest for the wider international audience. The research provides a broad example of the layering of the collective and individual levels of identity.

This research provides a voice to the wider individual, community and societal implications of managerial practices entwined with political decisions. This research encourages managers and educators in our business schools to seek to understand the relationship between the political, corporate, community and individual realms.

This research makes a significant contribution to understandings of the interconnectedness of social policy, industry, and the lived experiences of individuals. Moreover, it contributes to the broader single industry town literature, which previously has focussed on stories of decline from a North American context.

This article proposes a model for benchmarking tourism quality of life (QoL) that is practical and affordable to implement by communities of all sizes. The model is tested on a group of 30 mountain towns in the Appalachian region of the United States.

An existing model measuring resident QoL from Roanoke, Virginia, is discussed and a new model for tourist QoL is proposed. Both models employ secondary data from free sources to calculate a practical, affordable and quantifiable QoL index.

Analysis of the data indicates the Appalachian mountain town with the highest tourist QoL score is Lynchburg, Virginia, with a composite QoL index value of 128, followed closely by Charlottesville, Virginia, with an index of 126 (where an index of 100 = the US national average).

A tourist QoL model has practical value because it can be used by local policymakers to benchmark their region's QoL, make comparisons with other destinations, and ultimately, as a tool to help market their community – all using free and readily available data.

This case study adds value to the hospitality and tourism literature by sharing the Roanoke QoL model for the first time with the academic and practitioner community and extends its methods to propose how a tourist QoL model would work. It also addresses the research gap noted by Uysal et al. (2016) who observed a dearth of tourism research studies that utilize objective measures.

Drawing on evidence from ten towns (across England, Wales and Northern Ireland) participating in the High Street UK 2020 (HSUK2020) project, the purpose of this paper is to reveal how local stakeholders involved in place management respond to high street decline through a strategy of repositioning.

This paper identifies the challenges faced by the towns considering repositioning, and highlights examples of good practice of relevance to the practitioners. First, it outlines the perspectives on repositioning from the academic research and theory, before drawing on evidence from across ten UK towns that participated in the HSUK2020 project, to reveal how repositioning involves more than just taking a snapshot profile of a place.

The research revealed major challenges faced by local stakeholders in clearly identifying and communicating their market position, in particular, the maintenance of up-to-date information on catchments was lacking at all the locations. Despite having local knowledge and some data, stakeholders still did not possess a clear (or shared) understanding of the identity or function of their towns. This evidence reflects the complexity of analysing and understanding repositioning and developing coherent strategies.

Knowledge exchange between stakeholders involved in place management can help inform the identification of new strategic objectives, appropriate interventions and project planning and delivery. Where resources are limited, particularly in smaller towns and settlements, the research demonstrates the significance of collecting and sharing data and analysis with other stakeholders, because this can generate positive outcomes for all.

By offering empirical evidence based on the experience of local practitioners, this paper provides valuable insight into how town centre stakeholders collect, interpret and analyse data, revealing the challenges, opportunities and practicalities involved in developing and implementing repositioning strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of locally-produced architectural design solutions for the provision of thermal comfort in the vernacular settlements of Mardin, Turkey.

With an aim of extracting clues of climate responsive design, the paper develops a socio-technical assessment methodology and presents a comparative inquiry between the vernacular and contemporary built environments of Mardin.

Findings display that the capacity of vernacular architecture in providing a more climate responsive living environment than contemporary one is in fact correlated with the design of living spaces in harmony with the local climatic conditions as well as how inhabitants traditionally use and behave in designed space.

The paper argues for a need for (re)conceptualization of thermal comfort within and through the production of housing, as well as by taking into account the ways in which end-users interact, adapt and sustain end-users' everyday life in accordance with the local climatic characteristics.

With strategic road and rail links and a work‐force that will more than double in about ten years, Redditch would seem to be the ideal place for development in the industrial Midlands. But in a town famed for its needle‐making, the progressives and traditionalists do not always see eye‐to‐eye. Report by Ian Mandle. Pictures by Colin Porter.

The public library service for the County of Cheshire administered by the former Cheshire County Council since 1922 was mainly a book lending service to the more rural areas of the county with village library centres staffed by volunteers and later a mobile library service. Branch libraries served small towns and the suburban fringes of the larger towns with a student library postal loan service as support. Library services in most of the larger towns were run by the borough or urban district authorities, and in all there were eighteen library authorities in Cheshire by 1964. In 1965 S. G. Berriman, the former County Librarian of Middlesex, was appointed to the new post of Director of Libraries and Museums for Cheshire County Council, and with the support of an independent Library Committee, rather than a Sub Committee of the Education Committee, he proposed and achieved a massive development programme. Between 1964 and 1973 the face of the Cheshire Library Service was transformed as substantial money both capital and revenue was made available for the very first time and many new libraries were built. With the advent of local government reorganisation and the proposed changes to the shape of Cheshire that exciting developmental period was over, and Berriman decided to retire early as Director of Libraries and Museums to allow a new man to steer the service into the new Cheshire. Appointed in 1972, that man was Alex Wilson.