Meeting in Berlin

Intending to enforce further thematic discussion and narrow down the scope of the joint work, the group met in Berlin, Germany, on 23-25.08.2021.

The meeting was organised in a hybrid setting, consisting of seven group members being present in Berlin and three others who joined virtually.

Throughout the three meeting days, the group discussed a broad spectrum of topics building up upon the small town-metropolitan core relations; starting from multiple national context-dependent understandings of small towns, continuing through the undeniable importance of socio-spatial aspects and finishing by exemplifying various perspectives (e.g. narrative, relational) that have to be taken into account during the further research.

The interdisciplinary exchange indeed allowed a more comprehensive exploration of the components mentioned above, which eventually led to reaching a scientific consensus on groups’ thematic objectives.

These will serve as the starting point for identifying future research steps during the next meeting in early spring 2022.