Exploring planning methodology for BC's resource-based communities, this paper
investigates rural community transition and proposes a planning framework based on
enhancing the survival capacity of communities facing the pressures and challenges of
economic and social change. Utilizing both primary and secondary research methods
(including a review of relevant literature, government publications, and a pilot of the
proposed method in Zeballos, British Columbia), this analysis is intended to contribute to
the practicing planner's tools for working with rural communities in economic and social
transition. The study first examines the context of British Columbia's forestry-dependent
communities. It explores the literature around successful community development efforts
and also around stable and resilient communities and identifies Fourteen Characteristics
of Surviving Rural Communities. It then proposes a planning method that is responsive
to these characteristics, with a goal to both build awareness of the community's inherent
survival capacity and to foster it through a 'learning-by-doing' process. It also examines
the role of the planner in working with these communities. Working with the community
of Zeballos, the pilot process revealed several insights about planning with transitioning
communities. These communities are not alike, they are shaped by a range of factors
and face diverse influences. Yet all require a willingness to accept and embrace change
and they require support in managing change. Best efforts to plan for an achievable
transition strategy requires considerable forethought in preparing a planning
methodology that serves the community's needs and enables the community to shape
goals toward achievable outcomes. For communities in transition, enhancing local
capacity to survive and manage change may be as important as selecting any specific
transition outcome, for it has been shown that it is in the way that communities
determine and implement their transition strategy that determines success in the effort.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/11740 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Grinnell, Deana F. |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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