Re-allignment of Towns

The Basic Issue

As towns shift in total population, the number and type of services needed to support the area shifts as well. In the shakeout of towns, the geographic distance between towns of different sizes shifts and changes over time. The change is generally slow on the prairies, and business closures take pace by attrition as people retire with nobody to take over. Many businesses cannot be bought because new owners would have to add purchase loan costs to the establishment making the operation prohibitive. Often small town businesses can stay viable because they have paid off premises, and very low overhead.

Cluster analysis is used to sift out town functional groupings and to map out the trends and status of a provincial distribution. Knowing this information can be very helpful in selecting an economic development strategy for a town or area. It keeps hopes grounded. There is an old saying, "if dreams don't come down to earth they can turn into nightmares", and it is very applicable in the area of Rural economic development.

Rural Development Institute Research Studies

• "The Internal and Functional Restructuring of Rural Communities in Agro-Manitoba" - Richard Rounds and Kevin Shamenski
  This study is a snapshot of our Western area of Manitoba so we can plan for stability, growth or decline as the case may be. An excellent profile.<

• "Rural Development through Trade-Volunteer and Business Alliances" - Peter Apedaile and David Fullerton in Chapter 2 of Changing Rural Institutions
  This paper, coming from an economic perspective is critical to the understanding of the development of the current rural situation because it is here that the concept of "entitlement" is brought forward.

  The concept is not developed in this article, as the author is far more concerned here with alerting people to the concept of voluntary associations serving as bridge organizations between companies and their representatives in the matter of forging strategic alliances informally across boundaries and barriers. This central concern of his bears some consideration, especially in that the customary channels for informal alliance building are no longer relevant in the global trading arena with its world wide and regionally blocked out trading areas. However, it seems to me a little crass to intentionally use the relationships of life simply for business ends.

  His major contribution in this article is in his consideration of entitlements and their diverse nature in our everyday life. He refers to D.G.Hartle's book, A Theory of Expenditure Budgetary Process, as one of the sources for his understanding of this concept.

• "Rural Institutions in the Arena Society" - Tony Fuller (Chap 3)in Changing Rural Institutions
  This is for me a totally impenetrable article, not because of the content, but rather because of its obscure (personal) image of an "arena". Set as it is as his unifying theme, he destroys his contribution to the definition of society at this stage in development by his obscurity. It is such a major piece in his work that it serves to obscure everything else.

  The author comes from a geography background and somehow his obsession with "space and time" is connected to this image of his. He is trying to gather together under one image the overlapping realities of short distance society, industrial society and open society (to use his terms). One interesting observation is that these eras in social development on the prairies are cumulative rather than discrete, and therefore the current interweaving of the leftovers makes for a confusing scene if one is not familiar with the layers which precede the present reality.

  The piece is not helped by it being a written account of a conference speech which was giv3n to collogues who were aware with his imagery. There are better presentations of his content available elsewhere I believe, maybe even from the author.

Other Resources