Urbanization
Although most histories of western Canada have
emphasized its agricultural growth, urban
development was equally important - at least
one-third of the immigrants who came to the West
before 1914 migrated directly to urban centres
and this proportion increased as the century progressed.
Urban growth
in the West was dependent largely upon the resource
base of the surrounding hinterland and external
demands for the produce that the region produced.
It also hinged on a town's proximity to the railway.
A town with rail
connections to outside markets obviously had
a much greater chance of success than one that
did not. Yet many
towns on major rail lines, even those with
a good resource base to exploit, did not evolve
into large cities. In some cases, the defining
difference was the role that boosterism
played in a town's development. Town promoters
were a close-knit group of civic officials and
business leaders
who held their own fortunes and those of their
community to be synonymous. They generally shared
the same ethnic backgrounds, the same goals, the
same priorities, and they jealously guarded their
cohesiveness against intruders. For this reason,
community
promoters dominated the decision-making processes
with a high degree of unity - a unity that will
probably never be seen again in Prairie politics.
Boosters were willing to gamble on the potential
of a community
even when it consisted of only a few buildings
or a single shop. Their perseverance and unshakeable
conviction in the positive impact of their actions
were often the magic ingredients that helped many
western urban
centres to develop, and in some cases to flourish,
while other communities languished in the prairie
dust.
Further
Readings
See also
A
Town Bypassed: Grouard, Alberta, and the Building
of the Edmonton, Dunvegan and British Columbia
Railway
> Next Theme: Convert
the Landscape
|
