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Urban vs Rural recruits. Do similar patterns exist in Canada?

Kat Stevens said:
Gee, I dunno.   Seems to me that a youngster from TO should be a great recruit. After all, he's probably very proficient with small arms and OBUA before his 15th birthday.   Easy enough to teach them to light a stove afterwards.... >:D

Naw... they rarely hit their targets with a decent grouping and all they know about OBUA would be running through yards from people in uniform.
 
Blindspot said:
Naw... they rarely hit their targets with a decent grouping and all they know about OBUA would be running through yards from people in uniform.

So they're experts in suppressing fire and tactical withdrawl. :D
 
but why say "troop" when really the correct term is "trooper"

Because "trooper" is a rank, being one of those fine Cavalry soldiers who have mastered all the training that the Queen requires of them and have earned their hook.

"Troop", when used to discuss a single soldier, is generic, and thus does not specify or imply rank.

And it is less formal than "soldier".

So there. :P

DG

 
Considering that by far the great majority of Canadians come from cities, it probably follows that that is where most of our recruits come from. Are there even enough truly "rural" recruits in the CF to be able to establish the truth of the idea that they are better than people from the city? Having served three years in a Res CBG with large "rural" areas in its AO, I would have to say that we seemed to get as many (or more...) "bad" files from rural areas as we did from cities. And, even if you live in a rural area, what does that mean? Go to your average small town (at least in Ontario...) and check out the number of obese, evidently unfit people (especially women, it seems to me). They don't seem to be a whole heck of a lot better off than city dwellers, as far as I can see.

Cheers
 
Depends on how you want to classify the Maritimes and Newfoundland since that is where the majority of recruits come from with rural Quebec a close second.  Toronto and Vancouver produce less than Ottawa.
 
kincanucks said:
Depends on how you want to classify the Maritimes and Newfoundland since that is where the majority of recruits come from with rural Quebec a close second.   Toronto and Vancouver produce less than Ottawa.

Really? I would be interested to know more about those figures. Is there somewhere we can see them?

Cheers
 
pbi said:
Really? I would be interested to know more about those figures. Is there somewhere we can see them?

Cheers

I have only seen them on the recruiting net but I will check next week.
 
several years ago I read an article that said about 60% of the CF came from the Maritimes, and most of them from Newfoundland. I'd be interested to know if that still holds true.

And contrary to what some of you think, I certainly didn't enter this thread to become part of a "city-folks bashing". Is every person from Hicktown a super-soldier? Of course not. Is every city-slicker a "babe in the woods"? Of course not. My statements were just observations I have made based on my personal experiences. Of course they're vague generalities. I haven't made a habit of recording the background of everyone I've ever worked with. Some things just stick out as trends. So go ahead and untwist your knickers.
 
What Para said.

If you're offended by what I said, then you are very thin skinned.  Can't be from Torwanna with a skin like that!  ;D

You will note that I used words like "personally" and "in general".

 
Each area/cities population will have it's own characteristics as well.

As I recall Prince George, BC (guess 85 to 100K people) seemed to have a higher percentage of hunter/fisher/woodsmen than I saw in Burnaby or Richmond, (I've lived in all three places).

I am standing on the theory that no matter where they are from "most" woodspersons (gender neutural and all) are more diciplined than the average person and are familiar with the added responsibility that carrying (and using) a firearm entails, so would make a better soldier.

I also believe that if a person is brought up properly (learning to be responsible and all that goes along with it), that will determine what kind of soldier they will make, no matter where they are raised.

That is also not always true, people are funny creatures.

Anyone can turn themselves arround to be better or worse.

There is a saying that goes something like this;

"The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet"

My money would be on a recruit that was well brought up and had spent time in the woods.

Smaller cities, towns and rural areas "appear" to produce more of these type of people but that may be an illusion.

Even if the assumptions are true, unless they join the forces it makes no differance.

On the flip side (going very much out on a limb) I understand that a lot of US recruits join the forces to improve their lot in life, which gives the impression that they would be motivated.

I would rather work with a keener, who has a lack of experiance, than an unmotivated know everything woodsperson.


These are just my observations, I didn't do a research paper on this.   ;)
 
I'm really surprised at the amount of kids from rual areas who have been turned away by the CF for failing the drug test. (As seen from being their driver taking them to be tested)

I honestly would have thought city kids would get dinged for drugs more than country kids. For the most part it's the opposite I've found.

It's something else hearing a 16 year old girl from the country talk about doing pot, cocaine, "8balls", extacy and a little meth.  The inner city kids seem to do worse when it comes to the aptitude tests but the country kids seem to have a big substance abuse problem.
 
I will be the first one to say that i am not the smartest person on the CF, but by god i will do my job till it is done right or someone tells me I am all fugged up and they show me the right way so i can do it again.      I do agree with one of the comments about a good majority of the CF members from down east being work horses even if some are hard headed.  My dad( newfie)  drilled into my head that a man is not a man unless he can put in a hard days work.  And that slacking off will only get me the belt.  And a empty fridge and  no respect from the town.
 
Ghost778 said:
I'm really surprised at the amount of kids from rual areas who have been turned away by the CF for failing the drug test.
I'm not. We used to drink more on a Monday night than most city kids I heard talk about drinking on a weekend. My gym teacher used to smoke dope behind the gym with his students.
Nuthin' else to do, except chores, hunt, and chase the neighbour girls. Who didn't mind gettin' caught. They were bored, too.
 
We used to drink more on a Monday night than most city kids I heard talk about drinking on a weekend.

Amen, brother. Joining the CF saved me from alcoholism, I'm sure of that.

Think about *that* statement for a second......

DG
 
I wonder when people say Urban/Rural, we really mean Richer versus not so Rich. I know for a fact, that Albertans make up about 9% of the Canadian population and have the highest GDP per Capita in Canada. Albertans make up about 5 % of the CF. I don't know the exact percentages, but Newfoundlanders make up the biggest proportion of the CF versus their percentage of the Canadian population. I think it's equal to Alberta, with a fifth of the population. I have no good numbers, but it is well known in Canada, and the US, that when the economy starts to tank, more people will join/try to join the military.

As for the Rural/Urban divide, I'm less knowledgable. I do know that generally, Urban areas have stronger economies than Rural areas. I also remember reading something that crime is actually higher in Rural areas, but I might be confused (or plain wrong )on that point.
What would be interesting to know, is of those Albertans in the CF, how many of them are from say Calgary, where Major Bronconnier said in a Canadian Business interview that the employment rate in Calgary is effectively zero, baring the hopeless, changing jobs etc...  versus the 20% of Rural Alberta.
Another thing that would be interesting to know is recruits from Calgary versus Edmonton. Both cities have booming economies, but the CF has a much higher visibility in Edmonton than Calgary.
As for education, I would put my Urban-educated intellect up against any Rural mind, but that could be arrogance or pique talking.

As for the Rural values of possible recruits, I have only one Urban versus Rural anecdote. I played a hockey team in High River near Calgary. Rural hockey teams tend to be uneven {smaller pool of people} but have great endurance {lots of ice time, combined with long games}, and their great players are usually much better than any one person on a city team. Well, long story short, my team was losing about 9 to 2, and in the last two minutes of the game the High River team pulled their goalie. Great sportsmanship right there. Mind you one of my team mates was challenging the entire High River team in the parking lot...
 
Given that it is Remembrance Week and not finding another suitable thread I am starting a new topic.

Here, reproduced, without comment, under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act is the first of s few article from the National Post:

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2197081
Who fights and dies for Canada?

Graeme Hamilton, National Post

Published: Saturday, November 07, 2009

2197536.bin

Chris Schwarz, Canwest News Service

"Who fights for Canada? Young white men, that's who fights," says Douglas Bland, chairman of Queen's University's defence studies program.

For decades, Remembrance Day was about honouring the ever more distant memory of Canadians killed in the two world wars and in Korea. Then in 2002 in Afghanistan, the country suffered its first combat casualties in nearly half a century, the beginning of a mounting toll that reached 133 last week. Canada has evolved considerably since the Korean armistice of 1953, becoming an overwhelmingly urban and increasingly multicultural society. But while the face of Canada has changed, the faces of its war dead largely have not.

The names, photos and hometowns of those who have died in Afghanistan provide a portrait of the Canadian solider of the 21st century, and in some ways he is not all that different from his 20th-century predecessor. "Who fights for Canada? Young white men, that's who fights," Douglas Bland, chairman of Queen's University's defence studies program, puts it bluntly. There are obviously exceptions to his generalization: three women are among the Canadian dead, as are six members of visible minority groups. But the great majority of casualties are white men between the ages of 20 and 39. They are more likely to have grown up in small towns than in major cities. And relative to its population, Atlantic Canada has suffered the heaviest losses.

The numbers suggest that significant pockets of the country are content to leave military service -- and the danger it entails -- to others. They also raise questions about the Canadian Forces' ability to confront demographic change that is draining its traditional recruitment pool. With each census, Canada's population becomes more concentrated in its major metropolises. In 2006, the six metropolitan areas with populations of over one million people -- Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa-Gatineau, Calgary and Edmonton -- accounted for 45% of the total population. But of the 133 Afghanistan dead, 26 -- or 20% --come from those cities.

The metro Toronto census area, which encompasses surrounding suburbs and makes up nearly one-sixth of the Canadian population, has lost four soldiers, 3% of total casualties. Truro, N.S., with a population of 12,000, has lost as many of its men. Metropolitan Montreal and Calgary have seen eight and six soldiers killed, respectively, while just one has come from the Vancouver area.

The four Atlantic provinces, with 7% of the national population, account for 23% of the dead. Saskatchewan's eight fallen soldiers represent double its share of the population.

"The casualties do tell us something important about the composition of our force," says Christian Leuprecht, a professor at the Royal Military College who is currently a visiting professor of Canadian Studies at Yale University. "There is a considerable over-representation from rural areas, and there has traditionally been over-representation from Atlantic Canada. That's partially a function of how virtually all militaries recruit. They tend to recruit from lower socio-economic strata ... and from areas that economically don't do as well. In those areas the military is an attractive employer and, interestingly, an institution for social mobility within a society." Figures provided by the Department of National Defence show that, with a few exceptions, a province's share of the Afghanistan fatalities reflects its share of overall enrolment in the regular forces.

In the post-Charter of Rights era, the army has increased efforts to recruit visible minorities, aboriginals and women. But a 2006 report by Canada's auditor-general found that recruitment among the three groups had fallen well below National Defence targets. According to the latest numbers from the army, 17% of Canadian Forces personnel are women. Visible minorities make up 3.4% of the Forces, compared with 16% of the overall population, and aboriginals are 2.6%, compared with 3.8% of the population. One area where the Forces are becoming more representative of the general population is age, a fact reflected in the Afghanistan casualties.

The Silver Cross mother who saw her young son head off to war and never return has been an icon of Remembrance Day since 1950.

Increasingly the mothers are joined today by widows and grieving children; the military even changed its regulations last year to allow soldiers to designate up to three people, including their children, to receive the medal. "The Canadian Forces are old compared to most militaries," says Alan Okros, a professor of leadership at Canadian Forces College in Toronto. The median age of those killed in Afghanistan is 26, but 51 of them were 30 or older, and 11 were 40 or older. (The median age among all Forces personnel is 33.) The ages of the dead "set this mission apart from any other mission," Mr. Leuprecht says.

Education levels are also on the rise among Canadian Forces personnel, a reflection of the increasingly technical nature of modern warfare, a 2008 Statistics Canada report found. In 1988, 19% of regular force personnel had a post-secondary degree or diploma while 26% had not finished high school. By 2002, almost half of the regular forces had a post-secondary degree or diploma and just 7% had failed to finish high school. "I'm competing head to head with all the major tech corporations in the world really, but in Canada specifically, and we're all seeking the same education demographic," says Commodore Daniel MacKeigan, commandant of the Canadian Forces Recruiting Group.

An even greater recruitment challenge is the decline of the group that has traditionally provided the bulk of members --fit, young, rural, white males. Growth in the 18-29 age bracket of Canadians is found among the recent immigrant and aboriginal populations where the Canadian Forces have had trouble making inroads. A 2008 National Defence report to gauge aboriginal people's views of enlisting found opposition to the role of increasingly engaging in combat. There were also fears of culture shock and being a minority within the armed forces. Research in Canada's Chinese and South Asian communities has found that young people rely heavily on their parents and the larger community for approval, and military service is not considered a desirable career.

"In cultural communities, there is pressure for children to become professionals, which means the military hasn't managed to position itself as a profession on a par with others," Mr. Leuprecht says. A 2007 editorial in the Asian Pacific Post, a British Columbia newspaper, criticized the community's failure to enlist. "Our strength as new Canadians must not only be measured in economic terms," it said. "We must permeate and be present in all aspects of Canada. That includes the Canadian Forces."

Another obstacle to recruitment is that military bases are no longer found in big cities. People are more likely to consider a military career if they come from a military family or know someone in the Forces.

"In downtown Toronto, where you don't see anybody [in uniform], there is no connection," Mr. Bland says. "Nobody knows anything about the armed forces." Being stationed at a remote base is unappealing to people accustomed to a vibrant city, and the sentiment is particularly pronounced among new arrivals to Canada, says Mr. Okros, who worked on recruiting diversity before he retired from the Forces in 2004. "There's a real reluctance in these close-knit communities to have sons and daughters leave Toronto and go to northern Alberta," he says.

CommodoreMacKeigan says he wants the Forces to more accurately reflect the Canadian population, but there is a lag of several generations between immigrants' arrival in Canada and possible interest in a military career. "Only after people have got established and can sort of breathe easily, then the youth start looking around for other career options," he says.

Mr. Leuprecht notes that the aversion to military service is not confined to recent immigrants; he sees it among university students who are all for a military intervention in Darfur, as long as they're not called upon to serve.

"Why is there this disjuncture, and should we be having these types of expeditionary operations when a good chunk of Canadian society, not just immigrants, would never themselves consider shouldering that sort of burden?" he asks.

Mr. Bland, a retired army lieutenant colonel, says the notion of military service as a part of citizenship, so widespread among Canadians in the two world wars, has largely disappeared. He faults successive federal governments for failing to mobilize Canadians around the idea that the country is at war.

"The army's at war," he says, "and Canada's at peace."

More to follow.





 
Reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s National Post:

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2197627
One Question: What have you ever done for your country?

2197658.bin

Paul Darrow for National Post
Paulette and Robin Tedford (L) stand with Tom and Angela Reid as they visit the cenotaph in Truro, NS, Wednesday, October 28, 2009. The names of their sons, Chris Reid and Darcey Tedford, are inscribed into the Afghanistan memorial.


Graeme Hamilton,  National Post

Published: Saturday, November 07, 2009

The bumper sticker on Robin and Paulette Tedford's red Ford pickup truck is as direct as they come. "If you don't stand behind our troops," it reads beneath a Canadian flag, "feel free to stand in front of them." The message might seem jingoistic and surprising in peace-loving Canada, but the sticker is a hot item in this small central Nova Scotia town, and nobody here would think to question the Tedfords' right to display it.

On Oct. 14, 2006, their youngest son, Sergeant Darcy Tedford, 32, was on patrol outside Kandahar when his light-armoured vehicle was ambushed by Taliban insurgents firing rocket-propelled grenades. He and Private Blake Williamson were killed. Born in Calgary but raised near Truro since the age of one, Sgt. Tedford was the third solider from the area to be killed in Afghanistan. Corporal Christopher Reid, 34, had died in August 2006 when his light-armoured vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb, and a month later, Warrant Officer Frank Mellish, 38, was killed in fierce fighting with the Taliban. Last December saw the combat death of a fourth Truro native, Corporal Thomas Hamilton, 26, who was born in Truro and raised in Upper Musquodoboit, about 45 kilometres away.

For a town of just 12,000 people, the war in Afghanistan has taken an extraordinary toll. It should not, however, come as a surprise. A careful study of the list of the 133 Canadian soldiers who've lost their lives in Afghanistan since 2002 shows they are far more likely to have roots in a town such as Truro than in Toronto or Vancouver. Reflecting overall patterns of enlistment in the Canadian Forces, those killed hail disproportionately from Atlantic Canada and the Prairies. They are for the most part white males under 40 who come from small towns rather than major urban centres. Guys like Darcy Tedford, Chris Reid, Tom Hamilton and Frank Mellish.

As a boy growing up in the village of Earltown, Sgt. Tedford was a good student with a compassionate heart. After his death, one of his teachers gave his parents a get-well letter Darcy had sent her on his own initiative, the first his parents had heard of it. He gained an appreciation of military service at the knee of his grandfather, a former sergeant-major. His childhood games had a military bent; he built a fort in the woods surrounded by barbed wire and booby traps. "What else are you going to do in a town where there's just 10 kids?" Mr. Tedford said.

Mrs. Tedford said it was a proud day when she drove her son to Halifax so he could sign the papers after enlisting at 18. "I was glad, because I firmly believed in all the principles of the good military background and opportunities for his future and something he could do with his life," she said.

"Darcy was an amazing man," his father said. "He's so lucky." Asked to explain, Mr. Tedford, who is retired from his job at a feed mill, said: "I think Darcy's light shone a long time ago and it's still shining. He was involved in a career he liked and knew it. Not me."

Cpl. Reid joined the Nova Scotia Highlanders Reserves battalion based in Truro after high school, then enlisted in the regular forces a few years later. His parents considered the military a perfect fit for a boy who loved the outdoors. He would think nothing of hiking in the dark in the cold of winter to spend a night at the family cabin in the woods.

"We thought it was a good thing for him," his mother, Angela Reid, said of her son's decision to enlist. He enjoyed "the excitement, the vehicles and the guns, for which he always had respect," she said. He had no interest in climbing the ranks, content to remain a career corporal because "he got to play with the toys."

"He loved the army," said his father, Tom. The couple cherish a photo of Chris taken in Afghanistan with his friend, Sergeant Vaughan Ingram, who was killed in battle the same day as Chris. "If you look at his eyes, his eyes are just smiling," Mrs. Reid said. "Whatever he was doing there he was really happy about."

Cpl. Hamilton was a restless, strong-willed boy who joined the cadets while he was in high school. His brother John, four years older, did not approve of the military, but nothing was going to change young Tom's mind. His mother, Cindy Higgins, said his success as a cadet helped convince him to enlist in the regular forces, which he did before completing high school.

She had her doubts about whether he was cut out for a soldier's life. "He never liked to be told what to do, so I never figured he'd make it through basic training," she said. "He would argue with the devil. If a kid bothered him at school, he fought with them, and he was just a skinny, scrawny little thing."

But he thrived in the army and was proud to serve in Afghanistan, she said. Now she looks at one of the pictures on what she call's "Tom's wall" in her home east of Truro and marvels at how muscular he had become.

"His arms! I didn't even realize his arms were that big. I just thought he was my little boy."

Warrant Officer Mellish knew from an early age that he wanted a career in the Forces. His teenage years were spent in Summerside, P.E.I., where his father, Barry, an RCMP officer, was stationed. He joined the air cadets when he was 12, where he rose through the ranks to become senior cadet. When he was just 14, he took a shine to fellow cadet Kendra Stordy, the girl who would become his wife and also join the military. They had two children.

"I never thought of asking him, 'What made you want to join?' " Barry Mellish said.

"I said, 'I'm glad that you know what you want.' I encouraged him to be the best he could be at whatever career he was going to choose."

Truro bills itself as "the hub of Nova Scotia," but it is a hub that most people skirt around on the way to and from Halifax. The tourism kiosk at Halifax airport greets arrivals with pamphlets on attractions in every corner of Nova Scotia, but the attendant came up empty when asked for material on Truro. Even inside the hub, a motel postcard rack offered cards from Digby, Pictou and the Annapolis Valley but nothing from Truro. Statistics Canada reports that the town's median household income is well below the provincial average, and its population is homogenous. Just 5% of the population are immigrants, with few recent arrivals, and English is the mother tongue of 96% of residents. It is a place where a Chinese restaurant can call itself Hou's Takee Outee without raising eyebrows.

It is also a place where military tradition runs deep. The names of 278 townsmen who fell in the two world wars, and now Afghanistan, are engraved on the downtown cenotaph. "The attitude of people here is they support the troops 100%," said Garry Higgins, president of the local Royal Canadian Legion branch. Remembrance Day ceremonies draw between 3,000 and 4,000 people, he said. Herb Peppard, an 89-year-old veteran of the Second World War, said the respect he receives from the townspeople reflects their appreciation of the military. "I think Nova Scotia is always represented well [in the Forces] compared to its population," he said. "We get very patriotic here."

"Support our Troops" decals are common on cars in Truro. Beside his car wash outside town, Tim Jardine has created a hillock where he plants a Canadian flag for every Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan. "We lost a lot of fellas here in town," Mr. Jardine, 47, said. "I just believe we should support our troops."

Officials at the Canadian Forces recruiting centre in Halifax said a number of factors explain why the region has historically contributed a disproportionate number of new recruits. "A good number of the folks who come through our doors have relatives of one sort or another who are, or have been, in the military, so that's a big driver," Captain Ron Gallant said. The presence of military bases in Halifax, Greenwood and Shearwater means that even people with no family connection stand a good chance of coming into contact with personnel, which demystifies military service. And the Maritimes' depressed economy plays an important role. "The economic benefits to a military person in the Maritimes are pretty decent compared to what average wages are throughout the Maritimes," Capt. Gallant said.

Harder to gauge is the desire to serve one's country, but Robin Tedford believes the sentiment plays a big role. "I think the people in rural Canada anywhere are far more patriotic than the people in the cities," he said. "I think the people in the cities are in too big a hurry to go nowhere and do nothing and don't take a look around them to see what's going on. Rural people have time. It's a slower pace of life."

Tom Reid agrees and takes exception to the view that Maritimers join the military because there's no other work. "Maritimers join because it's their tradition to join," he said. "I think Maritimers are more rural people, and I think rural people have their feet on the ground more."

The families interviewed have every reason to be bitter. Ms. Higgins said she tries to bite her tongue when asked her views on the war out of respect for her son's memory. But the pain of losing her son is still fresh, and she has seen the heartbreaking impact his death has had on his four-year-old daughter. "I think they all should be brought home, myself, but who am I to say?" she said. "Tom would be really upset if he thought we didn't support them."

Mr. Mellish said his wife, Sandy, also wants the Canadian troops brought home. But a trip to Afghanistan organized by the Forces convinced him that the mission is making progress. "I don't want to see our boys and girls killed over there. Don't get me wrong. But I do support them being there trying to help someone else," he said.

The Tedfords get angry when they hear people criticizing Canada's presence in Afghanistan. "I've got one question for them: What have you ever done for your country, and what are you willing to do for it? These guys are doing it all for us, and they don't get thanked enough," Mr. Tedford said.

The Tedfords and other bereaved families from central Nova Scotia get together whenever possible, often for lunch at the Legion. They were not friends before, but a perverse benefit of the high number of local casualties is the comfort of company. "We can vent on one another. We all have something in common.... It's been very good for us mentally," Mr. Tedford said.

When the group goes out for a meal together, people in town notice. "I had one person say, 'Geez, here comes the club again,' " Mr. Tedford said.

"It's the club nobody wants to belong to," his wife added.


Our thoughts go out to all the families of all those who have made the supreme sacrifice, in all our operations, across the decades and in three centuries.
 
This is well worth a read and a few minutes reflection after you finish. The CF is a small town force to a surprising extent and it appears the folks from the major urban areas have yet to identify it as a way up. Note the remark this comment from an academic that the military recruits from the lower levels of society:

"The casualties do tell us something important about the composition of our force," says Christian Leuprecht, a professor at the Royal Military College who is currently a visiting professor of Canadian Studies at Yale University. "There is a considerable over-representation from rural areas, and there has traditionally been over-representation from Atlantic Canada. That's partially a function of how virtually all militaries recruit. They tend to recruit from lower socio-economic strata ... and from areas that economically don't do as well. In those areas the military is an attractive employer and, interestingly, an institution for social mobility within a society."

I would appreciate it if any current or ex-recruiters would comment on whether this is deliberate, just something that happens or even if it is correct. The composition certainly is consistent with what I am finding in my interviews with gunners who have served in Afghanistan. What also is interesting from my research is the number of second and third generation (and more) military in our force.
 
E.R. Campbell said:
Our thoughts go out to all the families of all those who have made the supreme sacrifice, in all our operations, across the decades and in three centuries.

Amen.
 
I am not sure that it is income that leads to recruitment in small towns.  The small town (9,000) in which I live had 1 1/2 fatal casualties in Afghanistan and large numbers of enlistments.  The 1/2 grew up half way to the next town.  My town is probably in at the high end of income and opportunity in Canada.  I suspect that a greater sense of community might exist in small towns that ends up extending to the larger community.
 
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