1. Rural and Urban
Leading Economic Change Number 5, July 2012
Why are rural areas struggling?
We’re still months away from the October municipal is dotted with micro-urban-centres: small towns
elections, but a key issue has already emerged: ensuring and villages providing services to their surrounding
the long-term viability of small rural municipalities. rural regions. Many are struggling. Their traditional
economic bases have been slowly eroding. The
In May, the rural-urban debate was fueled by Richard most acute case so far has been the Town of Canso,
Florida’s keynote address at Greater Halifax which officially dissolved on July 1.
Partnership’s State of the Economy Conference. He
shared the prediction that 70% of the world will be Last year, in the shadow of Canso’s pending
living in urban and suburban centres in the next 30 dissolution (and Bridgetown’s financial crisis), the
years: “cities are the place where creative people Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities struck a Towns
meet.” This echoed concerns he raised a decade ago in Task Force. One of this group’s top
The Rise of the Creative Class: recommendations is for tax incentive tools (similar
to those available in Halifax) to help develop rural
I fear we may well be splitting into two distinct societies downtowns.
with different institutions, different economies, different
incomes, ethnic and racial makeups, social organizations, But this is not their report’s only focus. Their
religious orientations and politics. One is creative and fundamental argument is for greater cooperation
diverse – a cosmopolitan admixture of high tech people,
among municipalities, rather than conflict:
bohemians, scientists and engineers, the media and the
professions. The other is a more close-knit, church-based, The economies of Nova Scotia communities are
older civic society of working people and rural dwellers interrelated and there are opportunities for
(2002, p. 281). municipalities to work together to create growth…
(2012, p. 26).
There is no doubt that Nova Scotia has been urbanizing:
the population of Halifax has grown 9% since 2001, They are calling on all Nova Scotians to recognize
while the remainder of the province has declined by the mutual dependence of our urban, micro-urban
over 3%. Outside of Halifax and Sydney, our province and rural communities.
NSARDA is the link between the Nova Scotia RDAs, providing support and collective strength.
Since 1999, the Association has helped the Nova Scotia RDAs in improving the economy of
communities across Nova Scotia. For more information about NSARDA and the Nova Scotia
RDAs please visit www.nsarda.ca.
Leading Economic Change: A Discussion Paper Series from NSARDA

2. How Can Community Economic
Developers Respond?
Unfortunately, there is often confrontation between polarized in favour of a dominant region. But he also
rural and urban areas. Whenever we create political coined the term trickling down to talk about the positive
boundaries around a region, we also tend to create impact a growth pole can have on its surrounding area.
mental ones: an us-versus-them fight for development.
So then, the more optimistic metaphor is a bright star
The fight is focused on the seemingly irresistible pull of supporting a vibrant solar system. And research
successful urban regions. As cities accumulate people suggests this is the most appropriate way to think about
and investment, their mass increases, resulting in a the rural-urban dynamic in Nova Scotia. The Conference
greater gravitational pull on additional people and Board of Canada recently found that Halifax actually
investment. A pessimistic metaphor is the black hole: helps its surrounding region grow faster than the city
the opinion that cities suck the life from their itself! And Halifax has the strongest hub-and-spoke
surrounding regions. Economist John Friedman called effect of any city in Canada.
this the centre versus the periphery.
Hub-and-spoke relationships exist in every city, town
Economic developers around the world have tried to and rural community. Not every location can be a hub,
take advantage of economic gravity by setting up but the spokes also reap the rewards of their economic
regional industry clusters. Cluster development is relationships to other locales. To do so, every
loosely based on the work of economist François community must first become aware of its own
Perroux. He introduced the idea of growth poles in strengths. Secondly, communities must seek out
1949, never intending that they would be used in opportunities for regional cooperation.
regional development (they were to exist only in
abstract economic space). But this simple idea has come Community Economic Developers have always been
to dominate regional science. And thankfully, it takes a leaders in regional cooperation. Now, more than ever,
much less negative view of what we now call growth we must be successful at forging alliances across
centres, clusters, or hubs. administrative boundaries to create shared prosperity.
Albert Hirschman was an influential writer on growth Ryan MacNeil, MAES, EcD, is Principal of Ryan MacNeil & Co., a
poles. He understood that development can become company that helps development leaders & organizations become
focused and effective. Reach him at ryan@ryanmacneil.com.
Who is working on it?
Fostering regional cooperation is part of the mandate for Nova Scotia’s Regional Development Authorities (RDAs).
In one of many examples, the Lunenburg-Queens RDA has pioneered a “networked economic development
model”. LQRDA sees its role as catalyst to leverage the wide variety of municipal, provincial, federal, and not-for-
profit organizations that impact economic development in the Lunenburg Queens region. This past February, they
held Partnering for Regional Prosperity, an event designed to identify areas for closer collaboration, establish new
partnerships, and reveal gaps.
The Government of Nova Scotia has signaled its support for regional cooperation across a wide range of areas
(such as energy and waste management) and has encouraged shared-service models between municipalities,
schools boards, universities, and district health authorities.
Over the past decade, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency has supported extensive policy research on the
rural-urban dynamic in Atlantic Canada (see examples at http://ow.ly/c3RRy).
Leading Economic Change: A Discussion Paper Series from NSARDA