The Rural Voice, 1977-12, Page 9At the heart of every farming community is a small town. The
town and the rural area surrounding have an intricate,
inter -dependent relationship. One couldn't exist without the
other. The tov-n depends on the farming community to buy and
sell produce. The farms depend on the town to supply its needs.
If you listen to the statistics you'd think small towns were a
thing of the past. The facts, however, can be misinterpreted as
Lance P. Jones pointed out in an article in the Canadian
Paperworker Journal. It's several years now since the article first
appeared but the truths in it are still valid.
Canada is developing a new social minority ... the Canadians
who live in small towns.
This isn't surprising, for ever since the Second World War,
social scientists, journalists, politicians and spokesmen for Bi
Business have been lauding the growth of Canada's cities ani
the trend away from rural living.
There's no denying there has been such a trend. In 1901, most
Canadians - 63 per cent - lived on farms or in unincorporated
hamlets. Most of the others lived in small villages or towns that
served as trade centres for the surrounding regions. There were
only a fey: big cities in Canada.
But by 1971. 76.1 per cent of Canadians were classified as
urban dh.ellers. The rural proportion, according to Statistics
Canada's definition of rural, was only 23.9 per cent.
And the trend is supposed to continue. It has been estimated
that Canada's population by the year 2,000 will be 80 per cent
urban, with half the total population concentrated in nine giant
metropolitan centres; Montreal with 5.4 million people. Toronto
with 4.5 million. Vancouver with 2 million, Edmonton. Winnipeg
and Ottawa with 1 million each, Calgary and I amilton with
900.000 each, and Quebec City with 800.000.
So our legislators concern themselves with the problem of the
big cite. and draft massive - and expensive - programs for urban
redevelopment. urban transportation, control of urban
pollution. urban unemployment, urban poverty, urban crime,
and even urban alienation - the loneliness and lack of a feeling of
belonging that are said to beset modern man because he lives in
the big city. And so often these are shared -cost programs,
mailable only to those municipalities with a big enough tax
based to pay the municipal contribution that becomes, in effect.
a deterrent fee, eliminating the smaller municipalities.
Even education is geared towards the larger community, with
the stress on larger schools with more complex facilities. The
unviversities are located mostly in large centres, giving the city
dweller the advantage of not having to send his university -age
children to another centre and pay board for them there. In
Ontario, there vias a tremendous growth of community colleges.
It had been hoped some would be built in smaller communities.
and that thev would offer the first two years of university.
Instead, they became terminal schools, and the universities
successfully lobbied the provincial government to keep the
community colleges from giving university credit courses.
No wonder. with all this attention on the city and its problems,
people who live in small towns are beginning to share some of
the feelings of other neglected social minorities: the aged, the
pensioners and the native people.
But is Canada an urban country? Is it made up mainly of rural
people? Or is this image of Canada as a country of city dwellers
just a myth?
One contemporary sociologist says it is just a fairy tale. Rex A.
Lucas of the University of Toronto says this idea is just a myth
and that it has been perpetrated by social scientists for years.
Lucas reached his conclusion after he analyzed the data of the
1961 census. It showed'that even at that late date 6,004,383
people lived in communities of 30,000 population or over.
Another 2,072,785 lived on farms. That came to a total of
8.077,168 people, close to one-half the total 1961 population of a
little more than 18,000,000.
And he pointed out another relevant factor most people,
including, social scientists have ignored. That is Statistic
Canada's definition of "urban dweller". Statistics Canada
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THE RURAL VOICE/DECEMBER 1977, PG. 9.