Smart community, community informatics, ideology and governance

This paper analyzes the policy implications of a community technology case study conducted in 2005 in rural Nova Scotia. Linking national policy initiatives to local power struggles in community development, I outline the role of federal Connecting Canadians policies in the context of a small regional development authority (RDA), the Western Valley Development Agency (WVDA). The WVDA closed permanently in August 2005 due to a confluence of factors, including governance struggles and ideological conflict around the types of activities in which they engaged. This paper explores the variety of factors that surround the WVDA's closure from a micro to macro perspective, and analyses through a series of qualitative interviews the decisions of municipal partners to withdraw funding from the organization.