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municipalities a responsibility to plan for local communities. This is a
valid concept for most of the province's 140 municipalities where the
municipal council's jurisdiction covers a single community and takes in all of

that community (see Map 1).

The concept is less valid in places (such as the Chilliwacks or Fort William
and Port Arthur (Ontario) before amalgamation) where municipal and community
boundaries do not coincide. The inevitable problems and conflict include:
competition for assessment, disputes over shared facilities and incompatible
planning provisions for land adjacent to boundaries. Bill 9 attempts to
address these problems by providing a role for the Minister in reconciling
conflicting local plans.

Intermunicipal planning and coordination in metropolitan areas (see Map 2) is
much more complex. A metropolitan area is an organic economic and social
entity in which different parts play different roles in mutual support.
Employment concentrates in a few centres, while residential growth takes place
where appropriate space is available at (relatively) reasonable cost.
Residents may live in one municipality or electoral area, commute to work in a
second, travel to a third for shopping and use parks and recreational programs
In still others.

Municipalities in metropolitan areas across Canada have realized that they are
not islands and cannot meet all the needs of their residents within their own
boundaries; they have recognized that they must work’ together to provide
services such as water, waste disposal, major parks and transportation. This
‘recognition is the basis for the successful intermunicipal partnerships which
have developed in British Columbia's two major metropolitan areas, (the Lower
Mainland and Greater Victoria), with the assistance of innovative and often
ingenious provincial legislation.

Cooperation in the administration of services has highlighted the need for
area-wide coordination of growth and change. For example, the whole region
must pay greatly higher transportation costs if one or two municipalities
attempt to sustain a rapid rate of residential growth at very low densities or
+f other municipalities attempt to capture the highest possible proportion of
new employment but cannot supply affordable housing for the workers in close

proximity.

These issues can only be resolved by compromise. By working together,
municipalities and electoral areas can ensure more coordinated decision-making
that takes account of area-wide considerations but preserves local autonomy to

the greatest possible degree.

Local and area-wide planning may use the same information and deal with some
of the same issues, there is no duplication of effort because of the
difference in their functions. This is not uncommon; for example, auditing
and accounting both deal with the management of money, but from different
perspectives. Similariy, ‘local planning deals with development issues from
the perspective of the jocal community and its neighbourhoods while area-wide
planning places such issues in the context of the well-being of the

metropolitan area as a whole. 3