The Canadian Urban System,1971-2001: Responses to a Changing World

Canada is now overwhelmingly an urban nation. More than 80% of Canadians now live in urban
\nareas and over 60% in the larger metropolitan regions. As those cities change, so too does the
\nnation. In recent decades, Canadian cities and the entire urban system have .undergone a substantial
\ntransformation, not least because the context - national and international - in which Canadian
\ncities have developed has changed. As the factors driving change have evolved, so
\nmust our ideas evolve about how the urban system is organized.
\nDrawing on an extensive body of research on urban Canada over the last thirty years, much of it
\nundertaken through the Centre for Urban and Community Studies, this paper provides an overview
\nof change in the Canadian urban system for the period from 1971 to 2001. lt begins with a
\ncritical review of the earty ideas that guided that research and offers a revised and more comprehensive
\nconceptual framework. Particular attention is paid to the importance of changes in
\nthe national environment- in the economy, the demography, and the public sector- and to
\nshifts in the global environment that have in combination reshaped the urban system.
\nThe empirical analysis then demonstrates how that system has responded. Each change in the
\nexternal environment produces a different pattern of linkages within the urban system and with
\ncities outside the country, and thus a new geography of urban growth and change. The paper
\nconcludes with a review of current forecasts of anticipated urban growth to 2026 and speculates
\non the future evolution of the urban system within a rapidly changing continental and global environment.
\nThat system will certainly continue to evolve, but often in unpredictable ways. Growth
\nis likely to become more uneven, with further concentration in a few large metropolitan regions
\nand with much of the rest of the country in relative decline. The direction of evolution of the urban
\nsystem is likely to become more dependent on forces emanating from outside the country.

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.