THE RURBAN FRINGE

Embracing the Longview

Posted on | February 23, 2009 | No Comments

Last week, I had the pleasure of hearing Gordon Pitts - author, lecturer and senior writer for the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business - speak on the future of small and family-owned business … with a Western Canadian twist.

Chatting with him briefly following the presentation, he reiterated that SMEs, especially family-owned ones, need to embrace the “longview” and try to plan beyond the boom/bust mentality that pervades much of Western thinking and business enterprise.

Breaking the boom/bust cycle and building sustainable regional communities is one of the greatest challenges now facing the rural West.

But we will never be able to move beyond the boom or bust mentality in our regional villages, towns, and cities until citizens become engaged and properly map out and implement regional industry plans that create jobs that last and facilitate the redistribution of the population within and to vibrant regional centres.

Add to this …

  • strategic investments in infrastructure;
  • a new environmental awareness;
  • a renewed, progressive attitude to social inclusion; and
  • regional broadband enhancements;

… this new mixture would make  Western regional centres the [new] engines of national growth.

By embracing the “longview,” a new generation will sow the seeds of rural sustainability … for generations to come.

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