Journal of Rural and Community Development
Not a member yet
598 research outputs found
Sort by
The Economic and Social Contribution of the Public Sector to Rural Saskatchewan
Full text linkAs the economic and social landscape of rural Saskatchewan continues to change, the capacity of rural communities to remain viable is tenuous. Employment opportunities are a significant determinant of the economic viability of rural areas. In Saskatchewan, the public sector is an important component of the labour force, representing an estimated 23% of employment, with approximately 46% of those employment opportunities occurring in rural and northern areas. This represents more than 55,000 jobs with a further 21,762 jobs estimated as indirect employment supported by the public sector work. The estimated economic impact generated by these rural and northern jobs is represented by the direct public sector earnings of 823 million in indirect expenditure generated from these earnings. The public sector also tends to employ highly skilled individuals and provides well-paying jobs. This is especially important for rural women as there are often fewer high waged opportunities for women in rural areas. In addition to economic benefits, these public sector employees bring skills and networks that generate economic and social benefits for the communities and rural
areas where they live and work. As services consolidate in larger centres rural communities continue to lose public facilities and the economic and social benefits generated by those who were employed there. Public sector employees contribute not only to the economic viability but also to the social capacity of their communities through their important roles as volunteers, often in leadership positions. To assess the economic and social impact of the public sector on rural communities, an analysis of the economic impacts of public sector employment and a survey of public sector employees in two Saskatchewan communities were undertaken. This research reports on the economic and social benefits that public sector employment brings to rural Saskatchewan
The Rural Context of Community Development in Canada
Full text linkThis paper examines contextual conditions that limit or enhance community capacity processes. Four contextual conditions are considered in the analysis: integration to the global economy, stability of the local economy, metro-adjacency, and institutional capacity. Data from rural Canada are used to explore how these contextual characteristics condition the relationship between the use of social capital and four community outcomes: labour force participation, household incomes, employment, and life expectancy. Results from the New Rural Economy Project in Canada suggest that these contextual characteristics place important conditions on the capacity processes considered. In some case, they accentuate the strength of the relationship between social capital and the outcomes, in others they reduce it, and in a few, they reverse the direction of the relationship between the two. The paper concludes with some comments on the implications of the findings for policy development and community development practice
The Study of Rural Communities in Quebec: From the "folk society" Monographic Approach to the Recent Revival of Community as Place-based Rural Development
Full text linkThe intellectual history of social sciences in Quebec reflects an in-depth
community-focused monographic approach. This research model created a
conception of rural Quebec as a collection of communities best described as folk societies. It also reinforced a social and scientific representation of rural Quebec as traditional, backwards and conservative. This intellectual history culminated in the work of Horace Miner, a student of the well known American anthropologist Robert Redfield. In Miner’s 1939 thesis Saint-Denis : A French-Canadian Parish, the community of Saint-Denis is presented as a prime example of a folk society. A few years later, Everett C. Hugues, also from the Chicago school of thought, came to Quebec to study French Canada in transition. He completed an influential community study of the small booming town of Drummondville in the Eastern Townships.
In the 1950s, an indigenous social science took the lead in community studies, and created a conceptual model that portrayed rural communities as an expression of tradition. Since the Chicago school’s evolutionary paradigm conceived each society as moving from a traditional to a modern stage, rural societies would have no place within modern societies. This theoretical and conceptual incapacity to accept rurality in the modern or post-modern era is questionable, demonstrating the limits of this scientific paradigm to foster a greater understanding of rural social realities. Nonetheless, more optimistically, a new generation of Quebec rural historians are currently refashioning a different representation of the same rural Quebec. Instead of presenting these communities as conservative and static, they are now being portrayed as more open, adaptive, and creative, with a high level of individual migration. Communities are also shown to be proactive as they attempt to establish innovative institutional arrangements in the face of their specific economic and ecological opportunities and constraints
Community Services and Resources for Depressed Women in Two Rural Regions of Nova Scotia
No full textThe present study investigated the community services and resources available for depressed women in two rural regions of Nova Scotia. Employing asset mapping by means of a checklist, we surveyed 41 service providers in community agencies in these two regions regarding services and resources they viewed as available for a community project for depressed women. Analysis indicated that there were community and ancillary services that would be appropriate to meet the psychosocial and socioeconomic needs of depressed women. The respondents were also willing to offer their resources for such a cooperative network of community services. The findings suggest that there is a foundation for the establishment of more integrated community services in these rural regions to meet the needs of depressed women
Using Sustainability Indicators to Improve Access to Public Transit in Rural Residential Areas: Alternatives for the Georgia Basin, British Columbia
No full textoai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/3The consequence of our dependency on the private automobile is well documented in the literature. Roadway congestion, injurious and lethal traffic accidents, atmospheric pollution, groundwater contamination, suburban sprawl, social inequity, and fossil fuel depletion are a sampling from a long list of negative externalities associated with automobile dependency. Two observations from this literature have motivated this research. First, the bulk of the current automobile dependency literature applies exclusively to the urban landscape. While urban areas are certainly deserving of this attention, rapid population growth in rural residential areas threaten the sustainability of these areas. Second, while there is broad agreement that public transit offers a viable option to automobile dependency the sustainable transportation literature offers few examples of how community access to public transit can be enhanced in non-urban areas. This paper looks to the practical contributions from the sustainability literature, namely the use of sustainability indicators as a means of measuring community access to public transit in rural residential areas. A set of sustainable transportation indicators is developed based on three indicator types: land use, community design and transit policy. Using these indicators a questionnaire was sent to eight municipal transit systems serving non-urban areas within the Georgia Basin of British Columbia. This research points to the promise of sustainability indicators as a means of providing improved community access to public transit.
Keywords
Sustainability indicators, sustainable transportation, public transit, accessibility, mobility, automobile dependenc
Trends in Service Delivery: Examples From Rural and Small Town Canada, 1998 to 2005
Full text linkDuring the past two decades, social and economic restructuring in rural and small
town places across Canada has been accompanied by changes in the availability of
local services. From retail to social, health, and government services, changes in
local availability are occurring at the same time as such services are increasingly
needed to support local economic revitalization in response to economic change.
Drawing upon a seven year study of service availability in 19 rural and small town
places, this paper explores two key questions. The first concerns trends in service
availability over time. The second concerns patterns with respect to the location of
those services. The findings highlight general trends towards service reductions
and regionalization. The implications from these findings may be significant as
both outcomes have the potential to erode crucial local supports necessary for
economic renewal and transition in rural and small town Canada
