Local Development: Some Policy Directions

Andris E. Roze was an urban planner and designer in Toronto.

The authors of this slight booklet come from academic or research fields: William J. Coffey from the Institute of Public Affairs, Dalhousie University, Halifax, and Mario Polese from Institut national de la recherche scientifique — Urbanisation, Montreal.

This paper is a revised version of a document which the authors presented to the Department of Regional Economic Expansion (DREE) synthesizing the results of a seminar on local development which was held in Montreal in 1981 at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique — Urbanisation.

In essence, this paper discusses what local development is, how to evaluate its effectiveness, and what federal policy should be in giving grants for local development. The authors go on to discuss the difficulty of evaluating the success of local development programs and the criteria used to evaluate the programs. The evaluation stresses that aid to the small entrepreneur and the local population is most important. The report proposes that three types of policies be emphasized: funding, aimed at small business; information, aimed at the population at large; and animation, aimed at community groups. Each of these opinions is discussed in great detail. In conclusion, the authors present some evaluation of the pitfalls and strengths of these opinions.

This is a very technical paper on the theory and evaluation of government programs, aimed at a very specialized audience in economic planning. The language is highly academic and full of technical jargon, not meant for the general reader with no background in regional economics.

Resumé in French is included. The publication is also available entirely in French.