Barriers to effective land use planning in shrinking hinterland communities : lessons from Sudbury, Canada

Population decline negatively impacts the quality of the built environment in hinterland communities. For instance, population decline leads to an increased number of vacant properties and oversized infrastructure maintained by fewer taxpayers, often in turn leading to cuts in services and facilities. Fortunately, local officials in most countries have been delegated power through legislation over local land use planning and can mitigate at least some of the negative impacts of population decline on the quality of the built environment. Municipal power over land use is generally relatively substantial, more under local control than, for instance, addressing the detrimental effects of the growing concentration of corporate ownership in the mining industry. Yet, this power and capacity to mitigate and improve local conditions is often not exercised in a way that effectively addresses the consequences of population decline. Unfortunately, the dominance of the growth paradigm among municipal political leaders and planners together with a lack of local democracy have contributed to further deterioration of the quality of the built environment. In this chapter, I discuss these two key barriers to effective land use planning in hinterland communities. These are by no means the only barriers to effective land use planning in hinterland communities, but they provide a useful stating point. For illustration, I use the case of the City of Greater Sudbury, a hinterland mining city in Ontario, Canada.