Conclusion

The Way Forward

Far from constituting the idyllic imagined communities of yesteryear, today’s small city is the site of serious inequities and social tensions. While these problems have been fuelled by various factors, including the decline of traditional industries and racist responses to an increasingly multiethnic environment, they are the consequence, most fundamentally, of the globalization of capital and the application of neoliberal principles of economic and social governance. Not only have these forces generated growing poverty and homelessness, they have also created an atmosphere of competition for increasingly scarce resources, circumstances that foster mutual suspicion and, at times, xenophobia. The result has been a process of social fragmentation, in which the phenomenon of othering is amply evident. In this collection, we have sought to describe the experience of the small city from the perspective of those constructed as outsiders by dominant groups—groups whose understanding of community tends to be unforgiving of difference. At the same time, we have discussed ideas and practical approaches that emphasize inclusion and equity.

As the discussions in the first part of this book reveal, certain residents of small cities are routinely forced to endure expressions of hostility directed at them by other residents. This hostility is manifest not only in individual actions but also in the willingness on the part of both local government and more privileged groups to brand the less fortunate as a threat to their own safety and prosperity. The spatial layout of the small city—in which well-established residential areas often lie in close proximity to contested urban spaces—contributes to the virulence of the backlash against those deemed to be disruptive of social harmony. When those who feel a sense of ownership of public space daily collide with panhandlers, sex workers, and drug users or simply with homeless people pushing shopping carts, intense expressions of anger and moral outrage typically result. This public outrage can lead to vigilantism, but it also prompts civic policies aimed at “cleaning up” downtown cores and relatively upscale neighbourhoods. Such policies are especially appealing to municipal government when, as is often the case, the small city is seeking to market its uniqueness, attract new investments, and perhaps promote itself as a tourist destination.

These perceived challenges to the social order generate the most visible exercise of local power. Local responses to the presence of “undesirables” generally consist of more aggressive policing, coupled with new legislation. Whether implemented by police, bylaw officers, or other civic officials, these policies generally rest on the three Ds: denial, discomfort, and dispersal. The first is principally a response of neglect, one that involves the refusal to recognize the rights and needs of the socially marginalized. The second and third comprise practices such as the imposition of curfews in parks; prohibitions against camping; the aggressive enforcement of laws prohibiting panhandling and squeegee activity; charges of theft for the appropriation of shopping carts; the physical removal of sex workers, addicts, and other unwanted elements from public spaces now defined as “red zones”; and the rigorous patrolling of parks and alleyways to keep “suspect” residents on the move. Because they are founded on exclusion, these practices intensify the fault lines between the city’s dominant social classes, who implicitly claim the right to shape the community in their own image, and those relegated to the position of outsiders.

Perhaps the most egregious strategy of exclusion employed by local governments is “red zoning,” a tactic that originally targeted sex workers. The creation of “no-go” zones is fundamentally a strategy of dispersal, aimed at the physical removal of such workers—who, in smaller cities, are overwhelmingly female—from specified public spaces. This tactic of dispersal is generally accompanied by a widespread denial that women engaged in the sex trade are at risk, with respect to both their physical safety and their psychological and social well-being, and are therefore deserving of protection. This attack on sex workers reflects the strong gender bias that exists in connection with social supports. Men predominate among the visibly homeless, and their situation is often linked to a lack of adequate mental health care and/or to substance abuse. As a result, men have been the recipients of many social programs. In contrast, women without children are more often found among the hidden homeless, and significantly fewer front-line resources exist to address their health and safety needs—whether these be emergency shelters or second-stage transitional housing. Although the situation is changing, traditional gender attitudes and inequities have a tenacious presence in small cities.

This tendency towards social conservatism is also evident in attitudes towards ethnicity and race. Canada officially embraces a philosophy of multiculturalism, and Canadians often pride themselves on what they perceive as the absence of racism in this country. We are quick to point out that, for the most part, major Canadian cities do not feature the racialized enclaves that exist in many large cities in Britain and the United States, nor have they generally been home to race riots. But, to exist, racism need not take on such overt forms as police shootings or lynchings; it can also be “polite, denied, and accepted” (Brown 1989, 25) and hence much more insidious. Quite apart from the appalling treatment meted out to Indigenous peoples in the past, we need only to look at the present-day situation of First Nations, many of whom now reside on reserves adjacent to our small cities. The ongoing exclusion of the Indigenous population from the Canadian community is reflected in the parallel existence of local governments—band councils and municipal councils—that have vastly different resource opportunities, taxation mechanisms, and powers. “Separate but unequal” thereby becomes the hallmark of Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities living side by side—whether the issue is water treatment, housing, schools, or public transit. The division of jurisdictional responsibilities between federal and provincial governments contributes to this estrangement, in part by creating legal and administrative obstacles to developing common goals within a common region. Regardless of constitutional arrangements, an urgent need exists for more equitable and collaborative planning processes.

The process of othering so fundamental to racism extends, of course, to visible minorities, including newly arrived Canadians who choose to settle in small cities, and are not necessarily warmly received. But othering is also evident with regard to “invisible” minorities. To protect themselves from stereotyping, stigmatization, and discrimination, LGBTQ people living in small cities have often found it necessary to hide their sexual orientation. Experience has taught them that it is not safe to reveal themselves in certain settings. Parolees are in a similar position. Not only is their history of incarceration a huge liability with regard to possibilities for employment, but it also severely limits their hopes for social acceptance. The intensity of the pressure felt by individuals to conceal certain aspects of their identity is a barometer of the strength of a community’s investment in othering as the basis for self-definition and as a mechanism for maintaining social dominance. Put conversely, the intensity of this pressure is a measure of the community’s willingness to tolerate diversity. Younger people, who have been raised in a global world, seem on the whole to be more accustomed to, and thus more accepting of, differences in race and culture. Small cities that deliberately embrace diversity may thus find they easily attract a youthful demographic.

The social issues confronting small cities today are, in short, numerous, complex, and difficult to resolve, inasmuch as they are rooted in deeper and more pervasive problems: systemic poverty, unemployment and precarious employment, racism and other discriminatory attitudes, and gendered forms of oppression that flow from a patriarchal and heteronormative world view. In attempting to formulate equitable solutions, local governments must contend with constraints imposed from within the community, including the prevalence of NIMBYism, reactionary community values that uphold a narrow definition of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, and support for punitive approaches founded on legal sanctions and stricter law enforcement. Local governments are, moreover, often engaging with social issues for the first time. Their resources are limited, and they may lack the bureaucratic structures and personnel required to cope with these new challenges. In addition, they must operate in the face of senior levels of government that not only continue to offload responsibilities onto them but also circumscribe, both legally and financially, the possibilities for civic action and reform.

The question thus remains of how, in the face of the economic and social consequences of neoliberalism, small cities can succeed in building a sense of community based on the ideals of acceptance, accommodation, and inclusion. In spite of the above constraints, new voices are proposing alternative ways to manage this social complexity, with an emphasis on nonpunitive methods. Increased collaboration exists among local health care and social work professionals, nonprofit organizations, and local government, which has resulted in more inclusive and participatory approaches to community planning. These collaborative efforts build upon “small town” qualities of cooperation and community solidarity that now coexist with the increased institutional and occupational diversity of the small city. Through the participation of a wide spectrum of community members, the ongoing negotiation of differences in the planning process, and the building of complex partnerships, the small city can encourage mutual understanding and work towards building community cohesion.

At the heart of this process is a local government that accepts a social agenda as part of its responsibilities. One concrete expression of this acceptance is the existence of a civic social plan. Another is the creation of a formal position of social planner or community developer within local government, with a mandate to implement inclusive approaches to civic planning. Both suggest that local government is not only recognizing and assuming responsibility for a broader range of citizen needs than before but is also incrementally extending its authority in order to promote the development of healthier and more supportive communities. From a practical political perspective, these initiatives increase the likelihood of leveraging financial resources from higher levels of government while at the same time strengthening the work of many local community groups.

In order to build community, local governments will need to take an activist stance with respect both to their own citizens and to senior levels of government. Moving citizens from a state of denial to one in which they recognize the needs of others demands awareness building and education. The pursuit of a social agenda also obliges local government to become involved in planning and programming in areas where it may lack experience, capacity, and adequate resources. Most significant, then, is the need for a more active form of leadership than in the past, one characterized by visible and vocal advocacy on the part of the mayor, city council, and senior civic employees. Building inclusive local communities demands leaders who are able to gain buy-in from citizens who might otherwise resist progressive initiatives. But it also requires substantial financial commitments from both the federal and provincial governments. Funding is needed to provide housing, income supports, mental health and addiction services, and resources for child care, as well as anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-homophobic education programs, and securing such funding again presupposes active civic leadership.

In Canada, as in Britain, official government concern exists for the “health of communities,” and yet small cities have often found themselves left to the vagaries of the global economy, with its winners and losers. Those fortunate enough to have highly marketable resources do well, while others go into decline. In the Canadian tradition, they end life as ghost towns. In addition, as small-city governments begin to advocate more insistently for assistance from higher levels of government, senior government may be apt to respond inconsistently, adopting a sort of “squeaky wheel gets the grease” approach and thereby allowing disparities to develop in the distribution of funding and services among equally deserving communities. Ruling out this possibility will demand a commitment to egalitarianism on the part of senior levels of government, whose duty it is to ensure the fair and equitable distribution of resources.

Although the future of small cities is by no means guaranteed, our collection suggests that their full potential has yet to be realized. Municipal efforts to retain and attract investment are now widespread, but civic efforts must go beyond “rebranding” and offering incentives to new businesses. Local governments must also find ways to address the needs of those citizens who have been disadvantaged by broader economic restructuring. In our view, cross-sectoral initiatives and engagement with a broad array of community groups offer the best means to respond to unemployment and other local effects of economic dislocation. This approach seems to us better suited to the concerns of small cities than the focus on “creative clusters” inspired by the research of Richard Florida. By establishing links among local government, businesses, and universities, clusters seek to attract and retain young, educated entrepreneurs and foster a local “creative class,” which has been touted as the new engine of economic growth. With its focus on securing new business investments, however, this model can end up leaving many citizens behind.

Instead, we favour a model of cross-sectoral collaboration founded on the active participation of citizens from all walks of life. This approach goes beyond the notion of a “creative class” to encompass a broad cross-section of individuals, institutions, and community groups who collaborate to address the economic insecurities of the region, which then become the basis for the creation of local economic opportunities. Entrepreneurialism is broadened to include social enterprises developed with the cooperation of nonprofit groups, businesses, universities, and government to open the door to stable employment and a living wage for the community’s marginalized citizens. Forging a community depends in part on creating new avenues to employment in the face of national and global economic change.

If smaller cities are able to offer employment opportunities and lower costs of living, they will draw new residents. For the small city to become a destination for recently arrived immigrants, however, the element of truth in the perception that small-city communities are predominantly white, exclusionary, and unaccommodating to newcomers needs to be challenged through education, policy, and, above all, practice. Whereas larger cities are known for their pattern of ghettoization, a much deeper engagement between well-established Canadians and recent immigrants is, in theory, possible in the context of a small city. Realizing this potential for a richer quality of cosmopolitanism than is generally available in our largest urban centres will require a commitment on the part of civic leaders to dispelling the ignorance and fear that fuel prejudice. Small cities seeking to become more economically secure and resilient must make good on their claim to be safe and welcoming places for all to live.

In short, local governments need to be socially engaged. Such engagement generates community awareness and opens opportunities not only to solicit additional funding from higher levels of government but also to advocate for legislative change. In the meanwhile, local governments can work quite inexpensively to promote a stronger, more concrete sense of community simply by engaging in an inclusive and participatory approach to civic planning. Small cities need to recognize the diversity that exists within their boundaries, and local government can lead the way by allowing the voices of the Other—addicts, sex workers, parolees, First Nations, the homeless, and so on—to be heard at city hall. But the marginalized also need to sit at the planning table. Community attitudes towards homelessness and addiction have changed as a result of participatory planning, and this success can be extended to other marginalized groups in the city.

Citizens have long looked to local government for concrete material benefits, but with small cities now facing serious pressures, progressive councillors and civic staff have the opportunity to start a dialogue about the social dimension of community life. Marginalized and unrepresented citizens cannot simply be left out in the cold, subject to the shifting winds of the local political will. The capacity for local social innovation and the equitable treatment of all citizens are, after all, foundational principles of Canadian community life. Canada’s small cities have been dealt a hard blow by the combination of neoliberalism and the global economy. But it need not be a crippling blow. With the return of the Liberals to power in October 2015, are we finally emerging from the lengthy period in which senior levels of government abandoned the sense of compassion and fairness so long associated with Canada? If so, we would do well to seize the moment. Local governments and concerned citizens need to deliver a clear message to Ottawa that it is time to restore a measure of truth to the country’s self-image. Perhaps this, in turn, will prompt those in Ottawa to develop national benchmarks for the “healthy community” and to provide the support necessary to create such communities.

Reference

Brown, Rosemary. 1989. Being Brown: A Very Public Life. Toronto: Random House.