This book aims to inspire a positive vision that acknowledges the long and illustrious history of cities and towns as market places, centres of social assimilation and sources of creativity and invention. A stimulating variety of experience in a wide range of contexts is described in this book, and what emerges from the numerous case studies is the strength and diversity of local people's responses to problems which are often not of their own making. The proliferation of articulate and well-informed local organizations opens up new possibilities for international dialogue, both South-North and South-South.