NEW FAULT LINES? RECENT TRENDS IN THE CANADIAN URBAN SYSTEM AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR PLANNING AND PUBLIC POLICY.

The paper reviews recent trends in the Canadian system of urban policy, and documents the implications of these trends for planning and public policy. Although urban planners tend not to work at this scale, the ongoing reorganization of the urban system provides the broader context for their policies and plans. The analysis focuses on the effects on cities of the demographic transition and an aging population, intense economic restructuring and shifting patterns of international trade, increased immigration and ethno-cultural diversity, and the changing role of the state. These factors, in combination, have tended to augment levels of metropolitan concentration and increase the degree of uneven growth. They have also sharpened the economic and social divide between growing and declining places, and placed additional stress on service providers and on the resources of local governments. In concluding, the paper asks whether we are creating, as an outcome of these trends, new sources of difference - new fault lines - in Canadian society and in the country's urban fabric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]