EDMONTON – Determining whether a person is rural or urban requires only a simple test, a rural conference was told earlier this month.
Just place a gopher on the road. The urban resident will hit the ditch to avoid running over it while the rural resident will take out the fenceline to chase down the rodent.
This amusing story was told during the Rural Matters conference held in Edmonton July 5-8.
However, a speaker at the conference said such black and white differences are becoming grey.
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Mark Partridge, a professor from Ohio State University and formerly from the University of Saskatchewan, said some rural areas are becoming more like the cities they surround.
While the Canadian farming population declined to two percent in 2004 compared to 30 percent in 1931, the rural non-farming population has stayed constant since the 19th century.
For example, Partridge said there are more jobs in manufacturing in rural Quebec – 25 percent – than the eight percent combined in farming and logging.
Partridge said too many people, including politicians, have rearview mirror thinking and believe rural Canada’s success is based only on agriculture and other primary sectors. So when they try to build up rural Canada, they think of farming or forestry policy rather than today’s reality of a complex rural population.
Rural is often interconnected with the urban areas, especially within 100 kilometres of a city. Many people work in the city but live in the countryside. This commuting population appreciates the recreation and quality of life in the rural area. Partridge said that in addition to the area between Calgary and Edmonton, rural and urban is also blurring around Saskatoon and Brandon.
Partridge said if rural regions want to succeed they need to use good strategies.
First is to recognize rural-urban interdependencies. Commuters will also look to rural areas for their shopping, health care, volunteer work and entertainment, so it’s important to develop these services.
Rural regions should also realize they can’t pick the industries that will help them succeed. All they can do is make themselves as attractive as possible to mobile, knowledgeable workers.
“You can’t pick the winners. In 1978, Bill Gates of Microsoft went to Seattle because he could get workers because it was a nice place to live.”
Don’t chase business by offering tax breaks to entice industries to move to rural areas because these companies keep hopping to the next tax break. Partridge said the most stable rural companies start up in the local region and tend to stay there.
Partridge also advised rural and urban areas to recognize their shared fates and change to a more collaborative style of governance. That doesn’t have to mean amalgamation, but the
local government bodies within a region should meet at least once a year to talk about common issues.
He also recommended more tax sharing from federal and provincial governments.
“People come to shop at the West Edmonton Mall but there is no way to get that money back out to rural areas.”
