City Size and Academic Focus: Exploring Trends in Canadian Urban Geography, Planning and Policy Literature

Abstract

Between 1996 and 2001 almost half of the cities in Canada lost population. This uneven pattern of growth
prompted an examination of the English-language urban geography, planning and policy-related academic
literature, which determined that Canadian urban academic journals fixated on large, growing metropolitan
areas. Revisiting this literature a decade later, large cities have continued to dominate the academic discourse. Although articles dedicated to smaller and mid-sized cities are still relatively underrepresented in the literature, research focusing on more than one size of urban area has grown tremendously refl ecting an emerging interest in regional connectivity and a rise in the perception of urban areas as systems, rather than individual entities.