Elofson , Warren M – So Far and yet So Close: Frontier Cattle Ranching in Western Prairie Canada and the Northern Territory of Australia.

A&HCIBOOK REVIEW101199-2005

Regional diversification policy in Alberta

On August 4, 1992 Western Diversification Canada (WD) celebrated its 5th birthday. This anniversary provides an excellent opportunity to examine WD's mandate and programs and to assess the allocation of funding under its various programs. This article opens with a framework for conceptualizing regional economic development policy in terms of sectoral diversification and spatial diversification. It then considers how the Economic Council of Canada's Western Transition (1984) contributed to WD's policy orientation. The circumstances surrounding the creation of WD, limitations of its initial program structure, and the principles underlying the newly created Western Diversification Program are described. The paper concludes with an analysis of WD approved projects in Alberta to highlight some of the trends in the regional and sectoral distribution of funding

Industrial Development of Lethbridge: A Geographer's Interpretation

This paper was originally written as a field trip guide for the 1999 Meeting of the Canadian Association of Geographers. This revision is written for the Economic Development Department of the City of Lethbridge. The paper uses mainly secondary sources and field observation to provide the broad geographic and historic background necessary to understand Lethbridge's contemporary industrial economy. Corrections, questions and suggestions for revision are welcome; the author may be reached at [email protected]. The assistance of Greg Ellis Archivist, Galt Museum and Kel Hansen, City of Lethbridge is gratefully acknowledged. September 1, 2000, minor modifications in January 2004This unpublished manuscript provides an account of industrial development in the City of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada from a geographical and historical perspective.N

The livestock transition, peri-urban agricultural land use and urbanization in China

Rapid urbanization in China is embedded in a modernization process with profound implications for every aspect of its social development. Rising real incomes in urban areas have triggered a sea change in Chinese meat consumption with impacts on human health and obesity via the nutritional transition, on animal welfare and disease as China develops its livestock-handling and slaughter infrastructure, and on the environmental impact of growing numbers of food animals on the landscape. The urban transformation of both coastal China and the western interior is clearly polynuclear, creating a complex urban fringe with a lengthy interface between urban and agricultural land uses. There is enormous potential for residential-agricultural land use conflict in the dynamic rural-urban fringe within the administrative boundaries of expanding cities. Expanding cities encounter a growing peri-urban zone of large-scale intensive livestock feeding operations that are drawn to fast-growing urban markets. This exploratory paper is based on secondary source materials. The FAOSTAT database published by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations was used to provide global context. The National Household Survey of the National Bureau of Statistics of China as published in the China Statistical Yearbook is used to describe the growth of meat consumption in rural and urban areas. Meat production and livestock counts are broken out by province, SAR and shi to illustrate the rural-urban and coastal-interior dichotomies in a regionalized development process divided sharply by the Aihui-Tengchong Line. The principal achievement of this paper is the description of the magnitude and relative suddenness of China’s livestock transition as it is manifest in different regions. To show the significance of the livestock transition as a component of China’s urban transformation, the paper will conclude with an evaluation of the role of public policy on animal agriculture, the influence of the “dragon head” agribusiness companies over the livestock value-chain and the influence of the urbanization process on meat consumption and livestock production

Betting the Farm: Food Safety, Risk Society, and the Canadian Cattle and Beef Commodity Chain

Permission to include chapter in the University of Lethbridge repository granted by Matt Williams, House of Anansi Press

Economic development and industrial employment: A thousand points of light?

This paper disputes some of the empirical analysis on small firm job creation and argues that small enterprises are responsible for a relatively modest share of employment and employment growth at the national, provincial, and municipal levels. While the importance of small business should not be gainsaid, the traditional large firm sector is still a vital component in municipal economic growth and decline. The shortcomings of data on small enterprises are discussed to encourage a more skeptical interpretation of research findings on employment creation. Economic development strategy should include the attraction of new large enterprises and the needs of existing large employers must be addressed if the community economic base is to be sustained

‘The greatest and most offensive nuisance that ever disgraced the capital of a kingdom’: The slaughterhouses and shambles of modern Edinburgh

Review of Scottish Culture homepage: www.celtscot.ed.ac.uk/EERC_review.htmPermission granted by Editor Kenneth Veitch to include in the University of Lethbridge Institutional Repository.The slaughter of domesticated animals and their butchering for food has been an important component of urban economic activity since the Neolithic revolution. But since the dawn of the modern period, butchery has been cast in a pejorative light, and the slaughterhouse has been gradually excluded from urban life either by forcing its relocation to the margins of settlement or concealing it from the public gaze. Livestock slaughter is among the earliest examples of a common nuisance and strictures on the location of animal slaughter are among the earliest examples of urban land use regulation in Britain. In medieval cities, the marketing and slaughter of livestock was often proscribed within the walls of the city, forcing livestock markets to locate outside the gates. The enforced removal of slaughterhouses to the margins of the city became a recurring problem as cities grew out and around what had been the urban periphery. Yet meat was a perishable product and in the pre-industrial era, butchers needed to slaughter close to the marketplace to avoid decomposition. To avert enforced suburban banishment, the butchers of Edinburgh had only one option: to conceal their activities and minimize the nuisance caused by uncontrolled livestock slaughter which accounts for five distinct regimes in the location and spatial organisation of slaughterhouses in Edinburgh from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. This paper describes the locational dynamics and material culture of Edinburgh's Fleshers and their urban livestock processing industry. By providing an empirical account of the national and municipal regulation of animal slaughter, this primary research may inspire further study into the place of the Fleshers in the development of the urban crafts and of health conditions in Scotland's capital city.Ye

Situational Factors and Urban Growth: The Case of Lethbridge and Alberta’s Metropolitan Centres

Permission granted by Editor Dr.Yuji Murayama to include in University of Lethbridge Institutional Repository.The concept of situation, or the relative location of a place, includes two subsidiary components: intermediacy and centrality. Urban boosterism, the promotion of growth in a local centre in competition with other places was typically founded upon intermediacy in an effort to create centrality. Lethbridge, Alberta is presented as a case study to illustrate these different situational factors and show the difficulty of translating a situational advantage into the foundation for sustained growth. In 1938, Lethbridge became one of the key hubs in Western Canada’s embryonic airline transportation system and a critical junction in Trans Canada Airlines’ route system. This new technology seemed to confer an enormous situational advantage, perhaps allowing Lethbridge to challenge the metropolitan dominance of Calgary and Edmonton. Twelve years later the city became host to a federally regulated stockyard which was held to be the key to industrial growth based on the livestock industry. These developments from private and public sector investment were intended to exploit the situational intermediacy of Lethbridge and create situational centrality for the city. Unabashed urban boosterism sought to build on these two apparently unlimited opportunities for the city to modernize, to compete with larger centres, and to take its rightful place on the urban map of twentieth century Canada. In the event, these situational factors proved insufficient for the city to take a more prominent place in Alberta’s urban system.Ye

Subcontracting in Hokkaido's resource processing sectors

The Japanese economic miracle has inspired considerable interest in the organization of the Japanese industrial system. One of the unique aspects of industrial capitalism in Japan is the vast array of contractual linkages articulating part-time and family businesses with multinational corporations. This paper begins with a brief definition of terms related to industrial subcontracting in Japan and then considers subcontracting in Hokkaido. While less pervasive than on the mainland, industrial subcontracting is a vital component in Hokkaido's space economy and it is found in every industrial sector. To explain the relations between small and large firms two conceptual models are introduced: dualism and flexible production. Data from primary and secondary sources are used to show that the dualism model is most germane to the resource processing industries of the Hokkaido region

A bloody offal nuisance: The persistence of private slaughter-houses in nineteenth century London

Permission to post published version.British slaughter-house reformers campaigned to abolish private urban slaughter-houses and establish public abattoirs in the nineteenth century. Abolition of London’s private slaughter-houses was motivated by the congestion created by livestock in city streets, the nuisance of slaughter-house refuse in residential neighbourhoods and public health concerns about diseased meat in the food supply. The butchers successfully defended their private slaughter-houses, illustrating the persistence of the craftsman’s workshop and the importance of laissez-faire sentiments in opposition to municipalization in Victorian London.Ye