Recognizing Scale: Sustainability in Smaller Urban Places

This article explores how sustainable development can apply to the scale of towns and small cities. This question is explored through the case studies of two European examples: Ferrara, Italy, and Totnes, U.K. Both of these places have introduced a number of sustainably initiatives despite their small scales. While many of these initiatives are geared toward the mobility sector, they speak to a much larger vision of that both places have begun to articulate: how smaller urban places can adapt and take advantage of the development challenges of the 21st century. The author describes how these two experiences relate to towns and cities in Maine in the United States.