Centre for Sustainable Regional Communities
La Trobe University
PO Box 199
Bendigo 3552
AUSTRALIA
Tel: +61 3 5444 7804
Fax: +61 3 5444 7998
Email: csrc
@latrobe.edu.au
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Centre for Sustainable Regional Communities
Research Projects
Doctoral Research: The Remaking of Small Inland Country Towns
Investigator:
- Trevor Budge
Trevor's doctoral studies research examines and evaluates a set of responses to the issues and circumstances of small towns experiencing prolonged decline. The research will analyse whether the identified responses have been undertaken in almost denial of the long term processes of town decline and change which reflect a series of inexorable fiscal and global realities and forces. The research poses the proposition that the series of social demographic and community consequences of small town decline have generally been understated or ignored because they run counter to the traditional image and position of country towns on the political and cultural landscape of settler societies.
The Australian 'bush' and the American west are terms of nostalgia and Australian country towns and US small towns evoke images that form part of the national psyche. Substantial government policy and political agendas are based on this long held national psyche. However the reality is very different, towns are transforming in many different ways, and many have seen their traditional social, cultural and economic link with the surrounding agricultural base decline dramatically.
The reality is that improved natural resource management is critical for sustainable and productive agriculture. The farming community is more likely to invest in sustainable land and water management practices if their network of support towns has an assured long term future. The continuation of current trends associated with small country towns will be detrimental to agriculture and the environment.
For many towns there has been a paradigm shift in role and function as new settlers move in with a diverse range of backgrounds and reasons for relocating. Government policies and programs need substantial readjustment to reflect this new circumstance.
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