From the Saskatoon Regional Growth Summit, Andrew Sancton

1. Understanding the Process
Saskatoon Regional Growth Summit
Andrew Sancton,Professor of Political
Science, Western University, London
asancton@uwo.ca
November 20, 2013

2. A Quick Lesson in Regional
Planning
 What problem is regional planning
supposed to address?
 Please forgive simplistic slides (and
simplistic narrative)that follow
 I was asked to start at the beginning
 Assume urban areas serviced my
municipalities

3. The perfect starting point
 There is no problem if there is one
municipality for one urban area and
that municipality is not growing
City of Stability

4. The Ontario county (or part of
Saskatchewan)
town
township
city

5. Fringe development around city in
the absence of central control
town
Heavy purple line
Indicates fringe
development
township
city
Nearby growing city
New suburban
municipality

6. What are the problems if every
municipality acts alone?
 Infrastructure inefficiencies
 No control on negative externalities;
no incentive for positive externalities
 Potential inequities
 No mechanism for projecting a
regional presence (possibly important
for economic development)

7. Fixes (details to follow in
conference)
 Voluntary intermunicipal cooperation
 Special-purpose bodies for infrastructure
and/or planning
 Municipal boundary changes
(annexation/amalgamation)
 Creation of multi-functional regional
government
 Provincial regulation
 All or some of above at same time