Re-thinking local autonomy: Perceptions from four rural municipalities

Abstract

Led by larger urban municipalities, the current municipal reform agenda in Canada places considerable emphasis on the issue of local autonomy. This article looks at how this agenda might affect smaller rural municipalities, since the assumption seems to be that one can simply re-size and re-shape policy prescriptions from urban and suburban contexts to fit rural areas. Drawing on the lessons learned from an eight-year project titled "Understanding the New Rural Economy: Options and Choices," the authors argue that autonomy is only valuable in relation to a locality s capacity to take advantage of new powers and that rural capacities are very different from those of their urban counterparts. The authors present a conceptual framework m which capacity is a dynamic and multidimensional entity of which autonomy is a necessary, though not sufficient, condition. This framework is then employed to explore four rural Canadian municipalities. This study is the first to consider traditional administrative reforms in a rural context. Employing a case-study methodology, the authors found four dimensions of capacity that may support changes to local autonomy: strategic planning, citizen participation and support expertise, and access to revenues. © Institute of Public Administration of Canada.