| Regional planning practice often incorporates the concept of governance at the city-region level, in order to avoid adding another level of government. Governance is the practice of various agencies working together to achieve common purposes. Within this definition, and outside the planning literature, the concept of governance is equivalent to inter-agency collaboration. The purpose of this research is to examine the challenges and benefits of collaborative relationships in the context of the Manitoba Capital Region. Stakeholders are interviewed to provide insight into the current relationships within the Region, as well as to provide insight into the development of new relationships. The creation of an inventory of inter-municipal relationships contributes to the development of regional initiatives at the provincial and municipal levels. Inter-agency collaboration frameworks from the social sciences field are relied upon to characterize the identified relationships. The Interjurisdictional Cooperation framework and 3 Models of Collaboration are applied to the existing relationships in the Region. Four prominent themes are identified and analyzed including: resources, power differentials, expected outcomes and contextual factors. This study serves as a linkage between collaborative planning literature and social science literature related to inter-agency collaboration through the description of the specific requirements for collaboration and the applicability to the regional planning process in the Manitoba Capital Region. |
