RECENT TRENDS IN URBAN GROWTH AND POPULATION REDISTRIBUTION IN CANADA'
4 ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHESES
Hypotheses which purport to explain these recent trends in urban growth and migration, particularly the relative decline of large cities and the renewal of growth in some peripheral regions, remain largely untested. There are also f a too many hypotheses
to discuss in any detail here. Moreover, given the extent of regional differentiation in economic structure and, t o a lesser extent, in life-styles in Canada, hypotheses advanced fur one spatial scale or for one region may have little validity o n another scale or for different regons. What can be done here, however, is t o raise issues over and above those (jt'dernographic structure which more formal models may wish t o address in subsequent research.
4.1 The Economic-Base Hypothesis
Perhaps the most obvious explanation is that of job shifts and the changng structure o f the national economy t o actueve greater efficiency in production. The argument, developed largely in reference t o the USA. is that shifts in the national economy, notably the relative decline in manufacturing and the obsolescence resulting from a lack of investment in the urban physical plant. have been particularly detrimental to the older metropolitan areas and industrial districts. New industrial jobs have been created, if at all, in lower-cost areas, new tertiary employment has become more footloose locationally, and primary jobs have increased in those areas that are fortunate enough t o have resources which are currently in high demand. This is the approach taken by numerous authors in attempting to account for metropolitan decline and regional decentralization in the USA (Kain, 1975 ; Sternlieb and Hughes, 1975; Leven, 1978). It is essentially an economic-base argument. (For a provocative review of this hypothesis, as reflected in the papers in Sternlieb and Hughes ( 1975), see Vining (1977).)
In the Canadian context, however, we must take into account regional differentials In economic and political structure as well as the differences in industrial structure between Canada and the USA. Because Canada is much more dependent on resource industries, aggregate growth will fluctuate widely with international commodity markets.
These fluctuations also have a highly variable regional impact, given the intense regional specialization r . ~ t e d earlier. However, manufacturing, apart from that which is tied directly t o the resource industries. has not migrated away from the industrial heartland to the same extent as in the USA; it simply has not expanded as it did in the 1950s and 1960s (Table 7).
150 L. S. Bourne
TABLE 7 Regional distribution of population and manufacturing activity, 196 1-1975~.
Kegion Population (%) Manufacturing industry
Employment (70) Value added (%)
Source: Department of Industry, Trade, and Commerce, Ottawa, 1978.
In order to identify the spatial implications of industrial growth and decline in Canada one must also consider the differential response attributable to extensive foreign ownership and the predominantly branch-plant structure of the manufacturing sector in Canada. Britton (1978), for example, has argued that the locational behavior and investment strategies of foreign-owned branch plants are inherently different from those of locally owned firms. In particular, the former underinvest relative to head-office plants in times of declining growth and import new technologres and investment during periods of rapid growth. They also tend to be more conservative in their choice of location as well as in technological innovation. The result is that downturns in the economy tend to be felt earlier and more severely and to last longer in Canada than in the USA.
If job creation were a dominant factor in the variability of population growth, one might expect to find significant correlations between employment, wages, and growth.
Drawing again on previous work by Simmons (Table 8), one finds that there appears to
T A B L E 8 Relationship between populationgowth and indexes of production (simple wrre~ations)~.
Variable Variable No.
Urban growth and population shifts in &na& 151
he only a modest relationship (r =
+
0.241) between employment and population growth during the 197 1- 1976 period among the 125 urbancentered regions and almost no relationship between population growth and increases in average wages (r =+
0.087).Population growth was indeed higher in areas of higher per capita income (r =
+
0.420) and wage levels (r =+
0.247) but employment growth was not.In Canada at least one clearly has to look beyond aggregate national models to explain regional economic growth. For example, the recent net migration balances registered in the Maritime provinces obviously reflect in part the declining job opportuni- ties in Ontario, the traditional destination of most out-migrants from the region. (These trends also reflect the increasing importance of a variety of government transfer payments and social security programs which have the effect of reducing the disadvantages of remaining in traditional low-income regions.) The growth of some smaller centers through- out the country, but particularly in southern Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia, rcpresents in part movements of the retired population and in part the extension of com- muting patterns and the growth of local public employment.
4.2 The Cultural Predisposition and Amenities Hypothesis
A second hypothesis on the changing metropolitan fabric looks more to the demand side, i.e. t o cultural predispositions and social preferences. People move to locations providing environmental amenities and access to friends and services and away from places which have disamenities such as pollution, congestion, or high cost. Berry (1970, 1975,
1976), for example, sees the regional decentralization of the population of the USA as an
~ntegral part of that society's preference for lowdensity living and newness (which is l'acilitated of course by higher incomes) and its rejection of collective action on the increasing disarnenities of older urban centers. There is also some evidence of a higher rate o f return migration to nor~metropolitan areas, perhaps to reestablish old family ties, to retire, or to make unemployment more palatable (Morrison, 1975).
4.3 The Unintended-Policy Hypothesis
A third hypothesis, or more appropriately a cluster of related hypotheses, concerns the role of governments and the public sector generally in designing a national urban fabric which includes a declining metropolitan core. The argument is that the summary effects of a myriad of policies (or nonpolicies) in housing, transportation, construction, and taxation has been, largely unintentionally, t o devalue what is old and to subsidize what is new. In the USA, at least, research by the Rand Corporation and others has suggested that tax policies encourage new construction rather than rehabilitation, thus penalizing older and particularly larger metropolitan centers (Vaughan, 1977). Government employ- ment and procurement policies have tended to favor nonmetropolitan areas, or urban areas in the south and west, and tariff policies have forced certain .ndustries, and thus specific locations, to bear the brunt of competition on International markets. The list of potential examples for this argument is long; however, to date it has not been possible to sort out the complex multifaceted impacts of a public sector as large as that in the USA.
In Canada the dominant form of' t h s argument is the reverse: that government policies have d r a ~ n e d the periphery t o maintain the strength of the heartland. Only recently, it is argued, have the pressures of economic and regional decentralization been sufficiently strong t o begin t o override the centralizing practices of the federal govern- ment. There is, however, little evidence t o support this contention either. (For a cross section of differing perspectives on these issues, see Lithwick, 1972; Bettison, 1975;
Bourne, 1975; Gertler and Crowley, 1977; Matthews, 1977; and Economic Council of Canada, 1977.) Instead, centralizing practices have perhaps been strongest a t the regional level, because o f provincial government policies, rather than at the federal level. Of course there are also differences in government and institutional structures which preclude simple comparative generahzations.
4.4 Other Hypotheses
There are obviously numerous other relevant hypotheses, and variations of the three theses that have been outlined briefly above, on declining growth rates and spatial variability. One alternative would be a view of the space economy as essentially a random
process ((Iurry, 1976). Rapid economic growth (or decline) in these terms takes place almost in the I'ashion of a random walk. In the Canadian context economic growth is Iiighly vulnerable t o external events (e.g., changes in the prices of staple products) which are largely unpredictable in both timing and locational impact.
Whatever type of urban-growth model is hypothesized, the importance of regional variability and economic uncertainty should not be underestmated. As a result of cco- nomic uncertainty governments are increasingly forced into a reactive mold of policy formulation. Policies in effect assume away one obvious characteristic of the future
-
uncertainty. Long-term planning becomes less rather than more common. At the same time, economic uncertainty increases the attractiveness of the larger urban agglomerations, where some of the risks of uncertainty can be more easily averted. This in turn could lead to greater regional (and social) inequalities.
4.5 Synthesis
In the Canadian context it is not at all obvious which, if ariy, of these hypotheses on urban growth is most applicable. Nor are the trends which these hypotheses purport to explain, notably decentralization and metropolitan decline, as yet clearly established in Canada. For example, there is n o single dominant sun-belt phenomenon as there is in the USA; nor is there a significant degree of metropolitan decay. Canadian cities remain relatively healthy, subject of course t o real economic differences and inequalities between regions. Also, there has been n o widespread decentralization of industrial jobs through migration or technological change. Regional economic diversity and independence tend t o produce highly varied growth rates and employment opportunities across the country both a t any one time and over time.
Nor is the unintended-policy hypothesis particularly applicable. A h g h l y decentral- ized federal system of government effectively precludes the evolution of any policy aimed
Urban growth and populon'on shifts in Canada 153 at centralizing economic and urban development at the national level. If anything, the reverse has been the case. Policies in such sensitive areas as transportation and tariffs have tended to preserve the status quo, often inadvertently preventing further centralization of population and economic activity. Recent political uncertainty in the country as a whole, and specifically with regard to Quebec, also adds a rather different dimension t o any attempt to account for national growth patterns in terms of public policy, intentional or unintentional. At the provincial level, as noted, the story is very different.