What

1
Whats Wrong With Rural Policy and How Might We
Fix It?

• David Freshwater
• University of Kentucky
• CRRF/NRRN/NRE joint conference
• Gatineau, Quebec
• October 26,2006

2
Laboratories of Democracy

• David Osborne
• Advocated devolution - 50 states conducting
  policy experiments
• With 50 experiments surely some will be
  successful and can be emulated
• Missing idea
• In laboratory failed experiments provide
  information
• Why did we fail?

3
outline

• Context
• Six Reasons for failure
• Policy conundrums
• Policy progress
• Where do we go now?

4
context

• Declining role of rural
• Demography as destiny
• Open economy - new idea or old news
• Macro-policy swamps rural policy
• Paradox of major NGO engagement -
  rural development for whom?

5
Six reasons for policy failure

• Path dependency
• Myopia
• Political compromise
• Defective knowledge
• Desire for universality
• Overestimation of capacity

6
Confounding concepts

• Role of agriculture
• Manufacturing is passé
• Regional or rural
• Labor force up-skilling or education pays
• Specialization vs. diversification
• Balancing subsidiarity and failure

7
The way forward - locally based development

• Models we know work
• Community Futures
• LEADER
• Enterprise Communities
• Why do we ignore models that work
• 6 reasons
• Resolved local impediments but not national
• What will cause us to change?

8
a new perspective

• OECD approach to improving rural policy
• Reflects information from a large number of
  member countries
• Experience based

9
New and old policies
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13
Rural spatial context

• Regional cities
• Polycentric city with integrated rural space
• Urban-rural fringe issues
• Where most rural people live
• Remote rural
• Market town - symbiosis
• Nodal Communities - independent but dependent

14
Provincial and State government focus

• Principle example of path dependency - rely
  primarily on the national government for rural
  policy
• National governments deal with sectors
• Provincial/State governments deal with people and
  communities
• Local government is a creature of
  provincial/state government
• Local public services are driven by provincial
  and state decisions

15
Where do we go now?

• Learn from our mistakes
• Have a set of models, but need to refine them and
  fully implement them
• Recognize that location is important and that
  rural is more than remote
• Accept that different rural interests have their
  own values - big tent approach
• Guard against the 6 causes of policy failure
• Sell rural to urban Canada and America