This is part of an ongoing conversation about the future of rural communities in BC at CITinfoResource. George's research and work takes him across the province, and he is a frequent contributor to our work on non-metro BC communities here at the Real Estate Foundation of BC. Most recently, George was in Port Hardy for the bi-annual meeting of the BC Rural Network. CITinfoResource interviewed Maureen LeBourdais of the Fraser Basin Council about the Summit in May.
The RIC at Selkirk College is one of several in the province that have received significan endowments from the Real Estate Foundation of BC. Others include the Chair in Cattle Industry Sustainability at Thompson Rivers University (see our interviews with Dr. John Church and Associate VP Nancy Van Wagoner) and the Regional Innovation Chair in Tourism and Sustainable Rural Development at Vancouver Island University (see the article by Dr. Nicole Vaugeois here). Dr. Vaugeois also posts to her Rural Tourism Development Blog, and more information about her project is available at the Tourism Research Innovation Project website.
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I enjoyed listening to the interview with George - thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteAs a person who works with rural communities in BC who are transitioning by focusing on their amenities, I think the questions are important ones. I will highlight a few thoughts on each...
Challenges in rural BC - well, I think these are fairly well articulated by many and range from depopulation and economic crisis to rapid development and community conflict. I think we too often generalize that rural communities are homogenous when in fact, there is a diversity of realities in the rural BC context. Some areas are struggling yes, some are doing fine and others are booming. In general trends however, my opinion is that the critical issue is that there is a widening "disconnect" between those in our metro regions with the realities of those in our rural areas.
Why is the future of rural BC important for urbanites? If BC is our collective land and waterscape - or our backyard - then using a stewardship approach, I would argue that it is good housekeeping to be mindful of what is happening within it. Our historical relationship with rural BC is that it was where our resources were located which we used for production purposes. If rural areas were valued, they were valued for their economic contribution to the province. As the current economic climate and impacts of globalization has changed the nature of resource production, our rural communities have found themselves caught in the middle. To ask what value rural BC has to urban centers perhaps now requires us to rethink this historic paradigm. I am sure that if you ask most urbanites in BC what they value about rural BC you will hear things like - mountains, wildlife, parks, trails, clean air, quaint communities, friendly people etc. These attributes make rural areas attractive to urbanites as they often represent the things that do not exist in urban centers. These attributes or amenities are also the reason that many rural areas are becoming highly sought out places to visit, live or play - explaining the communities that are booming in rural BC. This might be one way that we can realign how we view rural areas of BC in the new world - not as places of extraction and production but as places that are valued for consumptive purposes. I sometimes think that we have placed too much emphasis on the economic role of rural BC and not enough on the social/cultural and environmental roles that are also served. Since these values are the values shared by our increasingly "sustainable minded" urbanites, we should perhaps be broadening the mindset on the contributions rural BC has to these two - oft neglected areas.
Are urbanites aware of these amenities and if so, what value do they place on these amenities? Can these amenities be used by rural BC to reshape communities and the rural landscape? Or are there other approaches that we should be thinking about?
Nicole:
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments. I do wonder if we might be underestimating the “value” urban folks place on rural. For example, I recently spoke with a municipal councillor from one of BC’s urban centres about the Harnessing the Tide initiative, and in that context asked what her response would be if government said “we want to put more money into rural development, and that might come at some cost to your municipality.” Her response was that if it relieved some of the development pressures the municipality was experiencing, she would support such an initiative. I also recently came across a piece of research done by Robert Androkovich at Thompson Rivers that asked non farmers if they would be willing to pay more to protect the ALR, and the majority answer was yes. Perhaps we just need to be more articulate about what we want to achieve in rural areas, and what we need to get there. If we could do that, we might actually be surprised by how much support we could get from urban folks, especially if part of what we want to achieve also responds to the interests and concerns of urban folks.
Cheers
George