Rural-Urban Common Bonds: Challenges for Governance

1. 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@usask.ca

2. 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.

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

4. 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

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. Thanks to Ray Bollman, Statistics Canada

8. Thanks to Ray Bollman, Statistics Canada

9. Thanks to Ray Bollman, Statistics Canada

38. Thanks to Ray Bollman, Statistics Canada

39. Thanks to Ray Bollman, Statistics Canada

40. Thanks to Ray Bollman, Statistics Canada

41. Thanks to Ray Bollman, Statistics Canada

42. 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

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

44. 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

45. 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.

46. 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.