In this paper, analysis of the social, economic, and non-economic factors affecting development of small and medium regional industrial towns was studied. The research goal was to assess internal resources for transforming the environment of the small and medium towns in Russia through the attitude study of town youth being among the key actors of necessary changes. The methodology included intellectual data analysis methods based on self-organising Kohonen maps for the preliminary clustering of the small and medium towns by the level of social and economic development, and sociological surveys assessing level of youth knowledge about history and culture of their native towns. It was found that young town inhabitants are ready for citizen participation initiatives, independently of socio-economic status of their hometowns. Conclusions were made that inclusion of the youth in citizenship practices, and various types of volunteering activities can assist in preserving human capital of the towns. Copyright © 2022 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.