What does it look like when rural development is viewed as finding ways to better serve the people that call rural areas home versus developing rural areas into cities?
Too often, says Dr. Ashleigh Weeden, rural development policy fails to really consider what rural areas need more of and how to best support these projects, instead treating rural areas as just cities-in-waiting.
Weeden is a research associate at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and currently completing a post-doctorate at Brandon University on rural development. She also, tongue-in-cheek, calls herself a rural futurist, because as she says, there are futures in more places than cities, so why shouldn’t there be a rural futurist?
That said, rural development isn’t an oxymoron either. Rural areas are often agricultural-based, but not solely or always, and have different infrastructure needs and considerations than urban areas. The question for anyone in rural development is how to best foster rural economies that support residents and the services they need.
Weeden says that often the rural development debate becomes farming vs industry vs housing, but she says it doesn’t have to be either/or; instead, how can rural areas best use the resources available, that will leave the greatest number of opportunities in the future, and protect what we know we can’t replace. It’s key, she says, that decisions are made with our eyes wide open and with an increased level of transparency into land use and land use decisions.
Related:
Wilmot is an “unwilling host” to mysterious land development
Ag Policy Connection — Land use decisions
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