The Small Cities Book: On The Cultural Future Of Small Cities

by Garrett-Petts, W. F.

• ISBN13: 9781554200092
• ISBN10: 1554200091
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-05-03
• Publisher: New Star Books

Summary

When we think of Culture (with a capital C), big city life comes to mind. Yet as The Small Cities Book demonstrates, what constitutes culture in a small city is just as rich. In these twenty-five essays, poems, stories, and visual pieces, the authors of The Small Cities Book explore what it means to live in a smaller community during the era of global megacities. The impact of globalization has heightened concerns around cultural sovereignty, and has raised new issues regarding national and regional identities, cultural autonomy, and authenticity. The Small Cities Book localizes questions of globalization and cultural identity at the municipal level, and explores the challenges and possibilities facing smaller cities. Using the central British Columbia city of Kamloops as their example, the authors explore notions of social capital and community asset building, especially as they relate to the politics and aesthetics of self-representation, to notions of home and homelessness, to ideas of space and a local sense of place. Contributors include bill bissett, Garry Gottfriedson, Robert Kroetsch, Jacqueline Turner, Aritha van Herk, Marianne Ignace and George Ignace, Lon Dubinsky, Helen MacDonald-Carlson, Sherry Bennett, John Bratton, Don Lawrence, and Ginny Ratsoy.

Table of Contents

Introduction
``Working Well, Together'': An Introduction to the Cultural Future of Small Cities	1	(14)
W.F. Garrett-Petts
Lon Dubinsky
This Part of the Country	15	(4)
Robert Kroetsch
Part I: Cultural Formations and Possible Futures	19	(110)
kamloops ps	21	(2)
bill bissett
Urban and Economic Change in Kamloops: Postindustrial Adjustments in a Staples Economy	23	(26)
Robert MacKinnon
Ross Nelson
Culture and Community in Kamloops: Observations from the Small Cities Initiative	49	(16)
Lon Dubinsky
Ross Nelson
Julie Schooling
The Culture of Participation	65	(20)
Lon Dubinsky
A Cultural Hinterland? Searching for the Creative Class in the Small Canadian City	85	(26)
Ross Nelson
Art at Work: Culture-Based Learning and the Economic Development of Canadian Small Cities	111	(18)
John A. Bratton
W.F. Garrett-Petts
Part II: Cultural Narratives and Representations	129	(122)
From Into the Fold	131	(4)
Jacqueline Turner
The City Small and Smaller	135	(10)
Aritha van Herk
Vernacular Landscapes: Sense of Self and Place in the Small City	145	(22)
David MacLennan
Donald Lawrence
W.F. Garrett-Petts
Bonnie Yourk
Appendix 1: Representing Kamloops, A Photographic Record	163	(4)
Vernacular Landscapes II: Relocating the Homeless Mind	167	(12)
W.F. Garrett-Petts
Donald Lawrence
Homeless Mind Exhibition	179	(16)
River Walk Journal	195	(10)
Laura Hargrave
Away from Home, or Finding Yourself Back In Kamloops: Literary Representations of the Small City	205	(16)
Ginny Ratsoy
Children, Museum, Children's Museum	221	(10)
Elisabeth Duckworth
Children and the Small City	231	(20)
Helen MacDonald-Carlson
Part III: Cultural Symbols and Identities	251
Naked Paths	253	(2)
Garry Gottfriedson
Upstaging History: Outlaws as Icons	255	(24)
Sherry Bennett
Directing the Small City	279	(6)
David Ross
Political Theatre in a Small City: The Staging of the Laurier Memorial in Kamloops	285	(18)
James Hoffman
Tagging, Rapping, and the Voices of the Ancestors: Expressing Aboriginal Identity Between the Small City and the Rez	303	(16)
Marianne Ignace
George Ignace
Change and Resistance: Kamloops' Civic Symbols and Identity in the 1990s	319	(14)
Rachel Nash
Kamloops: The Risk Society is In My Back Yard	333	(16)
Linda Bell Deutschmann
Cultural Heritage, Identity, and the Politics of Small Cities	349
Mel Rothenburger