More CCA Awards & Scholarships
CCA President’s Prize 2022 Winner (University Level) – “Mapping Definitions of Rurality“
The 2022 University level award was presented to Daniel Kogan from Toronto Metropolitan University for his map titled “Mapping Definitions of Rurality in Ontario”
Design Objectives: Statistics Canada defines rural areas as “All territory lying outside population centres (POPCTRs)” but also suggest that an appropriate definition should used be based on the question being asked by the individual. Statistics Canada published a report in 2002 entitled “Definitions of Rural”1 in which they describe the current definition (territory lying outside population centres) as well as 6 alternative definitions which I will be mapping in my map poster.
The definitions are: 1. Statistics Canada’s definition – areas outside of population centers (enumeration areas with more than 1,00 people). Important to note that this definition has not been updated in over 20 years. 2. Non-CMA’s – people living outside of census metropolitan areas, also defined as “Rural and Small Town (RST)” by statistics Canada. 3. OECD Rural communities – census consolidated subdivisions with less than 150 people per square kilometer – used to compare rural areas internationally. 4. OCED predominately rural regions – census divisions where more than 50% pf the people live in an OECD “rural community”. 5. Non-metropolitan regions – census divisions no major urban settlement of 50,000 or more people. 6. Postal codes – the second digit in the Forward Sortation Area of a postal code identifies whether a postal area is rural or not (0 = rural). *no longer applicable QC and NB. On top of these definitions, researchers may also choose to come up with their own variations based on the study at hand.
It is important to choose the correct definition of urbanity/ rurality in research, where definitions can have a big impact on the results – for example, when assessing access to healthcare or food in urban areas in Canada. Such research can affect government decisions as well – when local governments attempt to improve access and infrastructure in rural areas. With the wrong definition, some areas may be overlooked. Even though there are many definitions of urbanity/ rurality in Canada, there are not many existing maps that describe them. Maps can be very useful to researchers and governments alike, acting as visual aids, making the choice of definition a little easier, which is why I will be mapping them for this project.
For this project, I will be creating 6 maps for all 6 rurality definitions. Technically speaking, the three maps will be based on the following geographic levels: 1. Population centers 2. Census Divisions 3. Postal Codes. All of these are provided by Statistics Canada (Government of Canada, 2019) as shapefiles and will require appropriate geovisualization for optimal comparison between the different rurality definitions. The census division (non-metropolitan area definition) layer will require some data manipulation to find CD’s with less than 50,000 people.
Inset maps may be required for some of these definitions, as some of the polygons (ex: small population centers) may be very small on not visible on a larger map. Rural and urban areas will be colorized using opposing colors (with a gray basemap) to highlight the differences, and a comparison of urban area coverage in each map will be provided.
