This article asserts the importance of studying small cities. We argue that small cities have been ignored by urban theorists who, in seeking to conceptualize broad urban agendas and depict generalizable models (for example relating to epochal urbanism, the structure and nature of the urban hierarchy, global cities and global city-regions), have tended to obscure as much as they illuminate. Given that study of 'the city' has been vital to broader advances in the social sciences, this neglect of smaller urban centres has profound consequences for urban studies. We argue that this situation needs to be rectified. We review literature relating to small cities and signpost a future research agenda. In doing so, we highlight how conceptual and empirical research into small cities can contribute to broader arguments that have championed the necessity of developing sophisticated and nuanced comparative approaches to understanding the complexity of cities and urban life. This article challenges urbanists to think big about thinking small. Copyright (c) 2009 The Authors. Journal Compilation(c) 2009 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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This paper develops dialogue between geographers' engagement with emotion, embodiment and affect, and geographical research on alcohol, drinking and drunkenness. In doing so, we focus on the long-running 'moral panic' relating to alcohol-related violence, disorder and drunken behaviour in urban public space. We argue there has been an ontological and epistemological impasse in 'alcohol studies' between approaches that have considered the biological, physiological and psychological impacts of alcohol consumption and those focused on social and cultural practices. While there has been an artificial separation, and hence under-theorisation of the relationships between emotions, embodiment, affect and everyday uses of alcohol, we develop an argument that signals the possibilities of a more nuanced and sophisticated approach. We present empirical research from the UK and offer theoretical, methodological and policy-relevant conclusions.key words emotions embodiment affect alcohol drinking drunkenness

This paper shows that, despite receiving significant attention, the relationship between alcohol, drunkenness and public space has been undertheorized. We show that where drinking has been considered it has generally been as a peripheral concern of political-economy accounts that have sought to conceptualize the development of the modern city, or more recently the impact of global economic restructuring on urban life and public space. Moreover, such work has posited the relationship between drinking and the political, economic, social, cultural and spatial practices and processes bound up with, for example, social control in modern city or with contemporary gentrification, corporatization, fragmentation and regulation of the night-time economy, public space and revanchist urban policy in very general terms. While drawing on evidence from around the world, this paper focuses on the UK and highlights the need for a research agenda underpinned by a more specific consideration of urban drinking. We suggest that such a project must seek to unpack the connections and differences between supranational, national, regional and local drinking practices and related issues, and in particular pursue a more nuanced understanding of the social relations and cultural practices associated with the emergence of particular kinds of urban drinking spaces.

This paper explores geographical contributions to the study of alcohol, drinking and drunkenness. We argue that where alcohol studies have engaged with geographical issues research has been dominated by a case study approach that has undertheorized the relationship between practices and processes relating to alcohol, drinking and drunkenness and the people and places being studied. We then go on to show the ways in which human geographers are approaching alcohol, drinking and drunkenness via complex interpenetrations of political, economic, social, cultural and spatial issues and unpacking connections, similarities, differences and mobilities between supranational, national, regional and local spatial scales. We argue that such an approach represents a conceptually and empirically important contribution to alcohol studies research. The paper concludes, however, that if geographers are to have a central role in shaping future research agendas then they must engage with theoretical issues in a more detailed and sustained manner, particularly in relation to epistemological and ontological impasses that have to date characterized the study of alcohol, drinking and drunkenness.

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Drinking in England is an issue of public and policy concern. The Government has focused on the city centre in pursuing its twin policy aims of urban regeneration and public order and health. This paper challenges the silences in such debate by focusing on the domestic drinking practices in two case-study locations. Drawing on insights from wider geographies of home, the empirical sections of the paper explore domestic drinking as a widespread, socially sanctioned practice, which is shaped through diverse social relations, and the home's connections to other time/spaces. The ideological power of home works to obscure the problems that domestic drinking can sometimes cause. key words Britain mixed methods alcohol home drinking policy

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