Market Towns

Chapter 3Exploring contemporary functional roles

Neil Powe, Trevor Hart and Tim Shaw

Introduction

The last chapter suggested a classification of towns through the functions they provide. These functions offer a basis for analysis, explanation, policy development and evaluation. As such, knowledge of these functions is of value to regional and local agencies when they are deciding where to focus interventions and what types of interventions to offer; such knowledge can also be of value in the development of planning policies for localities and can help establish an understanding of the roles of different settlements in an area, both in terms of how they function now and how they might function in future. When evaluating policy, a classification ...