Excellent article, John, it highlights one of the threads most likely to get us through slow collapse which some feel is inevitable and even well under way. Early adopters are already arriving in rural NS in record numbers. The solid seniors that have been carrying the social weight for some time in our towns & villages are finally getting some very welcome assist and toddlers abound. More alternative schools, pods, Farmers Markets & growers, home-grown cultural events, re-purposed church venues, food-trucks, are popping up all over. Peeps are taking to the woods and byways in RV's and Tiny Homes-downsized pioneers! On top of that, thousands of Nova Scotians have camps, cabins and cottages in our rural regions and many have been upgrading and staying longer, enjoying the less stressful life-style rural living offers. Getting the cottagers and the Tinys out of their cocoons to local events & activities isn't easy, takes ingenuity and persistence, but happening.
The most serious issue you raise IMO is the need to rethink the position of municipal units in our governance system...put them at the top of the pyramid with retained tax $ and control of their own destinies (hat-tip to the late Murray Bookchin). In return, municipalities need to then give assistance to small towns and villages to help then retain and regenerate the infrastructure (hard and social) they need for growth and thrival.
Your experience reflects our Eastern Shore experience line for line. That's the good news.
I will share a complexity I left out of this already long post.
In absence of local government, there's a confusion mixing up local community groups with government. People are looking to inherently shaky non-profit volunteer organizations and demanding government services, government accountability, and government responses. They demand broad accountability reporting, term limits, audits, open elections, regular public meetings, veritable lynchings, and most notably complaining that this or that project, eg. homeless help, food kitchens, etc. are not where they want 'their' taxes being spent, or 'why was the money spent on a kids summer employment program when people are living in their cars'. They are outraged and behave outrageously as righteous victims of government without consent to the point that the 'solid seniors' crowd who really powers these groups just eventually goes home or is driven out, like in real government. You just can't please everyone and the few squeaky wheels, who always seem to have astonishing amounts of time on their hands, will near leave them be.
So, it's as much about establishing real community government as it is about funding it, however modestly, through the communities own taxes, rather than having to beg it back through pick-a-winner lotteries for grants that pit communities against each other (remember amalgamation was supposed to decrease competition) and leave most without or lacking.
so many variables in local resilience, but yeah, without a better funding path and increased regulatory permissions, there is a definite limitation. Many munis want to do more-for instance The Municipality of District of Lunenburg wanted to institute the coastal protection regs, created but not enacted by the Libs and then totally scrapped by the Cons. Disallowed! We also witnessed community-level social action in West Hants influence DFO which briefly led to tidal flow again in the Avon River after a 50 year hiatus, significantly regenerating the ecosystem in just 18 months...only to have the Provincial Conservative Premier step in with a bogus emergency-measures directive (that remains in effect), closing the gates @ Windsor, undoing the ecological good that had commenced.
At the community level, volunteer fire departments do a lot of great work and are more able because of relatively recent changes to funding from the Province. The Province and Federal governments count heavily on local community resources for emergency response at all scales and could look more broadly towards strengthening over-all rural resilience and capability.
Reading/listening to Breaking Together by Jem Bendell would do everyone a lot of good.
Population density and the continued existence of old community infrastructure that can be upgraded are key elements in regenerating rural life. As more people leave the local and distant cities for rural return, combined with immigration from distant shores, I think we'll experience a Rural Renaissance. If eco-social collapse catches up to us, a renewed resilient rural
Excellent article, John, it highlights one of the threads most likely to get us through slow collapse which some feel is inevitable and even well under way. Early adopters are already arriving in rural NS in record numbers. The solid seniors that have been carrying the social weight for some time in our towns & villages are finally getting some very welcome assist and toddlers abound. More alternative schools, pods, Farmers Markets & growers, home-grown cultural events, re-purposed church venues, food-trucks, are popping up all over. Peeps are taking to the woods and byways in RV's and Tiny Homes-downsized pioneers! On top of that, thousands of Nova Scotians have camps, cabins and cottages in our rural regions and many have been upgrading and staying longer, enjoying the less stressful life-style rural living offers. Getting the cottagers and the Tinys out of their cocoons to local events & activities isn't easy, takes ingenuity and persistence, but happening.
The most serious issue you raise IMO is the need to rethink the position of municipal units in our governance system...put them at the top of the pyramid with retained tax $ and control of their own destinies (hat-tip to the late Murray Bookchin). In return, municipalities need to then give assistance to small towns and villages to help then retain and regenerate the infrastructure (hard and social) they need for growth and thrival.
Your experience reflects our Eastern Shore experience line for line. That's the good news.
I will share a complexity I left out of this already long post.
In absence of local government, there's a confusion mixing up local community groups with government. People are looking to inherently shaky non-profit volunteer organizations and demanding government services, government accountability, and government responses. They demand broad accountability reporting, term limits, audits, open elections, regular public meetings, veritable lynchings, and most notably complaining that this or that project, eg. homeless help, food kitchens, etc. are not where they want 'their' taxes being spent, or 'why was the money spent on a kids summer employment program when people are living in their cars'. They are outraged and behave outrageously as righteous victims of government without consent to the point that the 'solid seniors' crowd who really powers these groups just eventually goes home or is driven out, like in real government. You just can't please everyone and the few squeaky wheels, who always seem to have astonishing amounts of time on their hands, will near leave them be.
So, it's as much about establishing real community government as it is about funding it, however modestly, through the communities own taxes, rather than having to beg it back through pick-a-winner lotteries for grants that pit communities against each other (remember amalgamation was supposed to decrease competition) and leave most without or lacking.
Have you seen this in your region?
so many variables in local resilience, but yeah, without a better funding path and increased regulatory permissions, there is a definite limitation. Many munis want to do more-for instance The Municipality of District of Lunenburg wanted to institute the coastal protection regs, created but not enacted by the Libs and then totally scrapped by the Cons. Disallowed! We also witnessed community-level social action in West Hants influence DFO which briefly led to tidal flow again in the Avon River after a 50 year hiatus, significantly regenerating the ecosystem in just 18 months...only to have the Provincial Conservative Premier step in with a bogus emergency-measures directive (that remains in effect), closing the gates @ Windsor, undoing the ecological good that had commenced.
At the community level, volunteer fire departments do a lot of great work and are more able because of relatively recent changes to funding from the Province. The Province and Federal governments count heavily on local community resources for emergency response at all scales and could look more broadly towards strengthening over-all rural resilience and capability.
Reading/listening to Breaking Together by Jem Bendell would do everyone a lot of good.
Population density and the continued existence of old community infrastructure that can be upgraded are key elements in regenerating rural life. As more people leave the local and distant cities for rural return, combined with immigration from distant shores, I think we'll experience a Rural Renaissance. If eco-social collapse catches up to us, a renewed resilient rural