On September 16, 2016, I delivered a presentation titled “Re-embedding Wealth? Place, Philanthropy, and Policy” at the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development’s Symposium Series. A brief description of the presentation is listed below.
Rural communities are at a critical turning point in Canada after having witnessed decades of dramatic changes. The future of rural communities is largely viewed as dependent on external actors and external funds. At the same time, rural communities are sites of substantial wealth. Although rural areas are sources of wealth, it has largely been redirected out of rural regions to larger urban centres. Globalization further facilitates the hyper-mobility of finance to the point that many argue finance is no longer tied to place. Finance has become ‘disembedded’ with increasing interconnections and advancemens in Internet technologies. This presentation examines why rural communities should be concerned with the hyper-mobility of wealth and how they can re-embed wealth to place. Implications for rural planning, public policy, and research are discussed from both the Ontario and the Canadian perspectives.
