Path dependency and the composition of land use, built form and establishment diversity in the downtowns of northwest British Columbia

This dissertation examines sustainability and economic vitality in the downtowns of three transitioning resource towns in northwest British Columbia (BC), from the perspective of path dependency. With unique origins and influences during historic waves of investment, Prince Rupert, Terrace and Kitimat each followed their own planning and development path prior to entering a difficult and lengthy period of regional economic transition. Despite new economic activities and the emergence of relative population stability in the past decade, each core is constrained by its historic legacy of planning and development. This is embedded within the temporal accretion, depreciation and attrition of physical investments, and the associated entrenchment of local routines of life. Legacies are rooted in various policies and sub-policies, generating a system of opportunities, constraints and expectations that are not easily dislodged. Recent industrial expansion has not resulted in significant population growth, thus restraining new development, and limiting the reversal of long-standing imbalances in commercial leasing. Expectations of downtown revitalization, in line with current normative planning and development frameworks, are often not realized as inertia and lock-ins restrict the limited impetus for change. Growth may be a 'necessary' condition to attract substantive investment that could facilitate paradigmatic change, but it may not be 'sufficient', as multiple types of path dependency can steer new development towards predictable outcomes. While dominant core areas may be better positioned to capture investment, well-capitalized exogenous developers may be willing to risk capital on path-breaking region-serving developments in the periphery. Recent evidence suggests that permanent population growth interacts with prevailing sectoral dynamics to influence the amount of new non-industrial development. Municipal policies offer varying levels of directive to promote and structure downtown investment, but existing transport and land use dynamics ultimately engage with political, industrial, socio-cultural and institutional forces to affect the location and form of development. To realize path breaking change, places must prepare at a policy, sub-policy and decision-making level, to establish readiness and avoid the friction of path dependent forces.