Where do we go from here?
guiding question: Having worked through rural ideas for a while now, tell us what it all means. How do you envision rural Ontario in ten years? 50 years? More? What is the future of these places? And how do we get people to care?
The future of rural Ontario, rural Canada for that matter, is deeply subjective to what you determine as rural. We know that rural is far more than the industry or the amount of wild spaces that exist within the community boundary, it is all of these things in addition to the people and the memories and the social networks and so much more that may be subjective to individuals even within the same community.
I see rural spaces of the future as being far more connected to each other and to all Canadians. This connection will come in the form of increased telecommunications for needs such as health care, education, and the sharing of regional heritage. Greater communication among people will break down the rural-urban divide and reach a place of dialogue in the value of rural spaces as more than just places to provide cities with raw materials for use and manufacturing. As we have seen in this course, rural is defined by various components: industry, community atmosphere, quietness, and so forth. Through dialogue a point in-between the rural idyll and authenticity to have the cleanest rural with the most realism. The prewar era functional farms of Babe are long gone, yet the new can still be useful and creating in sustainable ways that will ensure that generations will still have access to food sources and natural spaces.
Building off the need for sustainable actions in all spaces, especially rural as they are commonly left out of climate adaptions, as outlines by Daniel, I see increased value to climate adaptations and mitigation in communities. This can include action such as increased carbon tax credits for home creation and retrofit with climate future awareness built in. Furthermore, every building will have some zero emissions energy generation be it a form of solar panel or wind power that has minimal to zero perceived impacts on wildlife and people.
I foresee rural industries becoming cleaner. Firstly, end fossil fuel extraction and increase renewable energies, transitioning those working on tar sands and oil rigs and in pipeline production into solar panels and alternative ways of energy transportation. Also for innovation that can remove the sediments of mercury and other pollutants from water ways that will not stir up settled pollutants making them worse. Areas like Grassy Narrows in Canada that are rural yet overlooked will be heard and supported.
I hope that existing rural places, particularly those whose main employment have died off, are revitalized and find new industries to make themselves relevant and self-sustainable. I know this will not be the case for all, some will close and their citizens remaining will move to larger places. For rural places with the capacity to have a future, possibilities using existing infrastructure such as in geothermal green energies in obsolete mines that can support hydroponics for produce based green houses. GoodLeaf Farms, based on Nova Scotia and now in Guelph too, is doing this to provide locally grown produce that meets nutritional needs of people so the community may remain even if isolated as long as energy can be provided for it to produce. For rural areas who are unable to revitalize or reinvent or create new in spaces that have dropping population I see them amalgamating in many cases. I would like to say all will remain and become vibrant again, yet the urban migration trend highlights this as a far more realistic pathway. I see those people who appreciate the rural ambience and activities, bringing them into cities. Community festivals and meetings, integration of green spaces into cities, bringing in the rural aesthetics that may be lost. Periphery zones of around cities of semi urban activities and semi-rural that have agriculture and feeding industries if you will for cities may increase, John Freidman in Agropolitan Development: Towards a new strategy for regional planning in Asia called these desakota in southern Asia.
I see greater connectivity, among and between so called rural and urban. I am not from a rural place, in-spite of this I think that we can get people to care about the necessity of rural spaces be highlighting the value of ecosystem services in society to improve human health and counter act climate change. By having green spaces, a characteristic of many idyll rural spaces near urban there is a potential to improve connection with those spaces to gain a better understanding of the function. Actions like quarries can be suppressed when people see the value of biologically diverse spaces. As attendees of the Aggregate and Agriculture seminar at the 2019 Rural Symposium saw, priority needs to be for sustainable services such as food provision and air quality maintenance over industry. Also, as in Perceptions of Wind Turbines in Rural Communities, also from the 2019 Rural Symposium, having informed and communicative representatives having discussions on what and how changes will be occurring may ease some concerns – from both rural and urban camps. With greater connectivity and communication I see rural spaces dictating what they need and also communicating why this works for them. In the wake of the updated Canadian Food Guide it shows that the Canadian government sees the need for variety and place specific needs in supporting Canadians, even Ontarians are highly diverse and require different supports. With less of a mold to fit into and more of a list of objectives with government or other groups of power in the area such as NGO or private citizen with vision.
As we saw in Maddy’s presentation, priority for water skiing was given over food provision – altering values by having discussions with children from a young age into the value of local foods and how first nations have a right to food sovereignty. This will create a generation that grow up with this understanding. Further, having mediation and community forums so different parties can discuss concerns and priorities have the potential to lay ground work for future cooperation. Furthermore, we discussed how settlements are changing in The Nature of Things, how suburbia will need to be replaced by complete and connected communities as we move away from cars for human and environmental health, towards the understanding that environmental health creates human health. Discussion that lays out that this transition is not coming to take your house next year if you live in the suburbs – instead building up urban centers so that in 20 years when your children want to live in connected places they can as upcoming generations have different priorities than their parents.
Reference reading
Friedman, John., Douglass, Mike. (n.d) Agropolitan Development: Towards a new strategy for regional planning in Asia. United Nations Centre for Regional Development. Pergamon Press.
Adams, Jenn. (march 13, 2019) Perceptions of Wind Turbines in Rural Communities: a case study in Orono Ontario. Rural Symposium 2019. Hosted by the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development at the University of Guelph & Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.
Reichheld, Jeff., Hehl, Emily. (march 13, 2019) Aggregate and Agriculture: Understanding the impacts of aggregate production on agriculture and identifying mitigation strategies. Rural Symposium 2019. Hosted by the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development at the University of Guelph & Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.