2010

By Greg Halseth

Rural and small town places are experiencing social and economic change at an accelerating pace.  The purpose of this presentation is to share ideas about how we can understand the changes affecting our rural and small town communities.  A key problem for rural and small town renewal in BC is that many of our approaches are still being constructed as if it was the year 1970.  The processes of change today, however, are not those of 1970.   This presentation begins by discussing the nature of the New Rural Economy, followed by a discussion of the restructuring pressures and senior government policies that can impact the trajectories of our rural economies.  We then explore some new approaches to community renewal that are grounded in place-based development, new regionalism, and the competitive advantage. Once we better understand those foundations, then local places and regions can evaluate for themselves where they think they may wish to go with community development and economic development planning.

• PowerPoint slide file
• PDF file of slides and notes
• PDF Word file with bullet points from slides and notes