Jerzy BANSKI, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
Small towns have specific social, economic and cultural features. Their relationships with rural surroundings set local development in terms of both direction and level (Hinderink and Titus 1988). Small towns are specific kinds of centres of economic development in rural areas (Shucksmith et al. 2005), hence the focusing of relevant research on relationships with the countryside, as well as the role played in servicing the rural populace (Powe 2013; Van Leeuwen 2010). Small centres are core localities for the supply of local firms and farms with goods and services, as well as the first places offering a market for the produce and products the former generate (Courtney et al. 2008; Tacoli 1998). Further emphasis is put on small towns being nodes of transmission where regional policy is concerned, as well as optimal places in which to locate core community services for those living in the countryside. The purpose of this paper is to review research approaches to the issue of functions played by small towns in contemporary rural development. The main point is to confirm the hypothesis that at present one can observe an increase in the level of functional differentiation characterizing small towns resulting from the progressive economic diversification of rural areas. Particular attention will be paid to the results of studies conducted in European countries. The study will draw on, among other things, the work contained in the monograph The Routledge Handbook of Small Towns (Ba?ski 2021).
Mots clés : small towns|rural space|development|economic functions|linkages
A104840JB