Following the yellow brick road and the future of Australia's declining country towns

The author argues that small town decline is part of an inevitable historical process, and that changes in government policy are a symptom rather than a cause of decline. He uses the south west Victoria and north central Kansas regions to illustrate this survey of the long-term causes of decline. Although solutions for dealing with the problems faced by country town residents are considered, the author believes that no longterm solution exists; the best answer is to provide small town communities with objective information to help them accept the realities and allow them to make viable plans for the future. One such plan may be a managed population movement to a larger regional centre.