Regional Science and the Canadian Journal of Regional Science : An Analysis and Assessment of a Changing Field

En collaboration avec Rémy Tremblay (Université du Québec à Montréal).

Résumé de la conférence :
This paper reports on an analysis of the evolution of the regional science domain in Canada as evidenced by the content and approaches in the Canadian Journal of Regional Science. Regional science in Canada has always been distinct from its American counterpart, in that it has been less dominated by economic sciences. From the outset, there has been a major preoccupation with practical issues, reflected in many papers dealing with regional development processes and patterns and their relationship to public policy and intervention. At the same time, over the years, shifts have occurred both in the geographic scales of analysis (for instance, many more examples of spatial patterns at the local level, including the neighbourhood level in urban areas, but with continuing attention given to regional, provincial and even national scales of analysis). The range of economic sectors has expanded, for instance with more attention being paid to agriculture and forestry, while much more attention has been paid to rural areas – their structures and processes of transformation, and their planning and governance. Furthermore, a greater variety of thematic themes has become apparent – business development has always been a part of the general domain, but papers have also appeared on labour, trade, the environment and political issues. The Canadian Journal of Regional Science has become more and more interdisciplinary in the last 10 years. One theme in particular that seems to encapsulate many of these changes and confirm the practical orientation of an increasing number of articles is the recent emphases placed on territorial governance, a multi‐disciplinary and multi‐actor approach to planning and managing change at local and regional levels. These changes in subject orientation have also occurred simultaneously (but not necessarily in any causative fashion) with an increasing diversity of national origins of contributing authors, and a greater balance of French and English language contributions than at several times in the past.

Pour lire le texte intégral de la conférence (pp. 104-111).