One City, Many Communities: Halifax Regional Municipality

Richard Wilbur is the author of The Rise of French New Brunswick and
co-author of Silver Harvest: The Fundy Weirmen’s Story.

The controversial decision to amalgamate the nearly 200 communities into
the larger Halifax Regional Municipality is defended in this book. Its
general aim, according to the preface Walter Fitzgerald, former Halifax
mayor, is “to give citizens and visitors alike an insight into the
commonalities that give us a shared sense of place as we go forward into
the next millennium.”

The book opens with a brief history of Halifax/Dartmouth. This is
followed by meticulously researched and lucidly profiles of the other
smaller communities contained in the new administrative structure.
Interspersed throughout the text are photographs (some of the more
detailed ones should have been presented in a larger format). Residents
in small communities on the periphery of this new municipal creation
might harbor resentment at a loss of identity, but they would be
hard-pressed to find another reference to their local history as concise
and as well-balanced as this one.