Rural-Urban Common Bonds: Challenges for Governance

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Rural-Urban Common Bonds Challenges for
Governance

• Presentation for the CRRF Annual Conference
• Tweed, Ontario
• October 14, 2004
•  
• by
• Mark Partridge
• Canada Research Chair in the New Rural Economy
• Department of Agricultural Economics
• University of Saskatchewan
• Email Mark.partridge_at_usask.ca

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Motivation Governance Matters

• Regions of Mutual Interest and Bonds
• ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Jobs Jobs Jobs!
• Rural Canada needs an economic livelihood
• Without a critical mass, rural schools, clinics,
  etc will close----Then the communities will die
  too!
• Individual rural communities have insufficient
  size to act alone.

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• Infrastructure
• Planning/zoning/environmental impacts/water
• Tax sharing for broader regions
• Other administrative boundaries extend beyond
  communities
• Health regions
• K-12 Education boundaries

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Central Place Theory

• Communities Change in rural/urban space
• 25K from a City
• 670 people for a bank
• 640 for a grocery store
• 955 for a general store
• 150K from the City
• 320 people for a bank
• 435 for a grocery store
• 430 for a general store
• Source, Stabler and Olfert, From Places to
  Regions, Saskatchewan Communities in the 21st
  Century. 2002

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• Rural communities need to be larger if they are
  closer to cities to ensure that they have a
  critical mass for services.
• Urban areas benefit from rural consumers.

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• Motivate Rural inter-relationships through
  commuting
• Economic livelihood for rural households
• Can maintain rural communities
• Source of labour for urban employers
• Easy to identify, frequent, and highly visible
• Links to zoning/planning
• Schools
• Health regions.

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Thanks to Ray Bollman, Statistics Canada
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Thanks to Ray Bollman, Statistics Canada
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Thanks to Ray Bollman, Statistics Canada
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Thanks to Ray Bollman, Statistics Canada
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Thanks to Ray Bollman, Statistics Canada
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Thanks to Ray Bollman, Statistics Canada
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Thanks to Ray Bollman, Statistics Canada
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CRFF-FCM CURA Project

• Assess the Rural-Urban Common Bond
• What are the common interests?
• Economic interrelationships
• Goods Services and Labour flow both ways
• Service area regions
• Commuting
• Governing and service delivery
• Infrastructure
• Zoning
• Economic Development
• Revenue Sharing

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• Other mutual linkages include environmental,
  healthcare delivery, education, and so on.

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Tentative CURA Agenda

• The five-year project will assess these linkages
  in several ways, including
• Assess Rural-Urban Labour Market Links
• Assess impact of rural-urban economic
  development.
• Define commuting linkages.
• Examine retail and producer service area
  linkages.
• These mutual economic interests form the basis of
  one form of regional governance/collaboration.
• If are at stake, the populace finds ways of
  enhancing their mutual benefit in economic
  development.
• If families and community livelihoods are at
  stake, it is easier for the public to see the
  common bonds and gains to cooperation.
• Easy to identify other common needs planning,
  zoning, transportation, future growth

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• Examine current governance.
• Survey of government officials to discover common
  concerns and current levels of cooperation.
• Case studies of rural-urban governance.
• Propose new ways of improved governance and
  service delivery.
• E-government
• Pilot Project on enhancing rural-urban governance.

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Possible FCM Roles

• Help in developing survey instruments for
  members.
• Help in administering survey.
• Consultation on particular case study regions.
  (e.g., Brandon MB, Greater Toronto, Northern BC)
• Design and administration of pilot project.
• Dissemination of findings to member governments,
  media, conferences, etc.