Transformation Of Resource Towns And Peripheries

Most developed economies, including single-industry and resource dependent rural or small town regions, are transforming rapidly as a result of social, political, and economic change. Collectively, they face a number of challenges as well as new opportunities. This international collaboration describes a critical political economy framework that will be useful for understanding these transitions. Transformation of Resource Towns and Peripheries describes the multi-faceted process of transition and change in resource dependent rural and small town regions since the end of the Second World War. The book incorporates international case studies from Australia, Canada, Finland and New Zealand, with the express purpose of highlighting similarities and differences in patterns and practices in each country. Chapters explore three main themes: how corporate ties and trade linkages are changing and impacting rural communities and regions; how resource industry employment is changing in these small communities; and how local community capacity and leadership are working to mitigate challenges and take advantage of new opportunities. This book will be of interest to students of regional studies, geography, and rural and industrial sociology. It will also have a strong appeal to policy-makers and local regional development practitioners.

Most developed economies, including single-industry and resource dependent rural or small town regions, are transforming rapidly as a result of social, political, and economic change. Collectively, they face a number of challenges as well as new opportunities. This international collaboration describes a critical political economy framework that will be useful for understanding these transitions. Transformation of Resource Towns and Peripheries describes the multi-faceted process of transition and change in resource dependent rural and small town regions since the end of the Second World War. The book incorporates international case studies from Australia, Canada, Finland and New Zealand, with the express purpose of highlighting similarities and differences in patterns and practices in each country. Chapters explore three main themes: how corporate ties and trade linkages are changing and impacting rural communities and regions; how resource industry employment is changing in these small communities; and how local community capacity and leadership are working to mitigate challenges and take advantage of new opportunities. This book will be of interest to students of regional studies, geography, and rural and industrial sociology. It will also have a strong appeal to policy-makers and local regional development practitioners.

Access to quality services and community infrastructure are vital parts of supporting sustainable and resilient rural and small town places. Renewing outdated infrastructure and supporting the delivery of services in rural communities present significant challenges from the constrained fiscal and policy realities of the 21st century. Drawing upon contributors from five Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, this book describes innovative service delivery and community infrastructure models that are appropriate to the contemporary rural and resource-dependent regions of developed economies. The examples show that an entrepreneurial approach to service delivery and infrastructure provision by local organizations and governments is needed. Critical economic and community development supports are crucial to assist creative and innovative sets of solutions that work for small communities. Chapters in this book argue that community development foundations for resilient rural and small town communities and regions must be co-constructed and co-delivered in partnership by both local and senior government actors, in terms of both policy and committed resources. This volume will be extremely valuable for students, scholars, and community development practitioners exploring policy-making, government initiatives, and community service provision in rural and small town places.

This book advances our understanding of resource-dependent regions in developed economies in the 21st Century. It explores how rural and small town places are working to find success in a new economy marked by demographic, economic, social, cultural, political, and environmental change. How are we to understand the changes and transformations working through communities and economies? Where are the trajectories of change leading these resource-dependent places and regions? Drawing upon examples from Canada, USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and the Nordic countries, these and other questions are explored and addressed by constructing a critical political economy framework of resource hinterland transition. Towards a Political Economy of Resource Dependent Regions is a key resource for students and researchers in geography, rural and industrial sociology, economics, environmental studies, political science, regional studies, and planning, as well as policy-makers, those in industry and the private sector, and local and regional development practitioners.

While much of the current research on the extractive industries and their socio-environmental impacts is region specific, Resource Extraction, Space and Resilience: International Perspectives critically explores the current state of the extractive industries sector from a uniquely global perspective. The book introduces a more dynamic idea of sustainability in evaluating mineral extraction and its impacts, and provides a spatialized understanding of the evolution of the extractive industries to help visualise the interlinkages across space, regions and scales. Professor Kotilainen responds to these theoretical challenges by analysing the potential for resilience of mining activities from multiple perspectives across scales, exploring why it is only possible to achieve temporary balance and stability for the whole resource extraction system. Taking a global perspective, the book explores the interlinkages of the industry, investigates the similarities and differences in how the industry operates and examines the social and environmental impacts it has. By providing an explicitly theoretically informed analysis of the state of the extractive industries, this text will appeal to a wide range of scholars with an interdisciplinary interest in the extractive industries and natural resource management, including human geographers and social scientists with a focus on the relations of humans and societies with their physical environments.

Economic restructuring and demographic change have in recent years placed much strain on urban areas with the effects falling disproportionately on neighbourhoods that were previously underpinned by industry and manufacturing. This has presented policy makers and city planners with a binary choice: to resist change and stagnate or to change and attempt to keep up with the pace of global demand. This edited book tells the story of how urban transformation impacts on people’s lives and everyday interactions – to question where and to whom benefit accrues from these changes. Urban Transformations offers insight into both risk and reward as local communities and public authorities creatively address the challenge of building vital and sustainable urban environments. The authors in this edited collection argue that understanding the specifics of community, space and place is crucial to delivering insights into how, where, when, why and for whom urban areas might successfully transform. The chapters investigate urban change using a range of approaches, and case studies from the four corners of the Earth – from the United States to Iran; from the United Kingdom to Canada. The varying scales at which governance or regeneration initiatives operate, the nature and composition of urban communities, and the local or global interests of different private sector actors all raise questions for urban policy and practice. It is important to not only consider the drivers of regeneration, but its beneficiaries need to be identified. This edited volume addresses and elaborates on critical issues facing urban transformation and renewal as a basis for future discussion on strategies for ‘successful’ urban transformation.

This volume represents the result of almost two decades of trans-Atlantic collaborative development of a policy research paradigm, the International Comparative Rural Policy Studies program. Over this period dozens of scientists from different disciplines but with a common interest in rural issues and policy have collaboratively studied the policies in North America, Europe, and other parts of the world. A core element of the book is the idea and practice of comparative research and analysis – what can be learned from comparisons, how and why policies vary in different contexts, and what lessons might or might not be “transferable” across borders. It provides skills for the use of comparative methods as important tools to analyze the functioning of strategies and specific policy interventions in different contexts and a holistic approach for the management of resources in rural regions. It promotes innovation as a tool to valorize endogenous resources and empower local communities and offers case studies of rural policy in specific contexts. The book largely adopts a territorial approach to rural policy. This means the book is more interested in rural regions, their people and economies, and in the policies that affect them, than in rural sectors, and sectoral policies per se. The audience of the book is by definition international and includes students attending courses in agricultural and rural policy, rural and regional studies, and natural resource management; lecturers seeking course material and case studies to present to their students in any of the courses listed above; professionals working in the field of rural policy; policy-makers and civil servants at different levels seeking tools to better understand rural policy both at the local and global scale and to better recognize and comprehend how to transfer best practices.

Creative industries have become fundamental in signalling the economic wellbeing of cities and urban regions. Workers who are attracted to the sector tend to have strong preferences when it comes to the neighbourhoods they want to live in, with factors such as job availability and urban amenities playing a large part in their decision. Skills and Cities analyses these factors and looks at the implications for urban and regional policy across a range of European cities. Drawing conclusions from the Netherlands and Scandinavian cities Copenhagen and Helsinki, this book sheds new light on the debate about the importance of jobs and urban amenities for attracting high-skilled employees. This edited collection brings together international literature and individual residential experiences from different cities, presenting policy simulations and highlighting the differences between urban and suburban groups. Subsequent chapters discuss the location preference and settlement process of international migrants and students in an attempt to understand what it is that attracts highly-skilled workers to a particular area. This book concludes by expertly drawing together the key issues surrounding the residential behaviour of highly educated workers and students. This collection will be of interest to researchers and policy makers in urban planning, as well as Postgraduate students researching housing preferences.