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The purpose of this paper is to trace community and regional responses to the economic downturn of 2008/2009 in Northern British Columbia, Canada. Our research during this period (2009–2011), the Northern Economic Vision II (NEV II) project, sought to investigate whether communities in the region were incorporating some of the core findings, lessons from an earlier project, the NEV I project (conducted in 2002–2005), in terms of preparing for both economic uncertainty and opportunity through place-oriented community planning and enhanced regional collaboration. Findings suggest that in the face of economic hardship, many communities continued to pursue community and regionally-oriented strategies in an attempt to preserve services and quality of life for local residents, and did not engage in reactive budget cuts in the face of economic decline, as experienced in previous bust periods.

Since the early 1980s, rural and small-town Canada has experienced considerable transformation from social, economic, and political restructuring. These changes put pressure on communities and regions to assume increasing levels of responsibility for economic planning and development. The record to date, however, reveals implementation gaps between plans and the results on the ground. This paper explores this implementation gap using a case study from northwestern British Columbia, Canada. The findings indicate that a failure to incorporate the context of place in the analysis of economic strategy reports results in flawed local and regional development processes and misdirected action plans. This research is set within a broader revival in the regional development literature, where an interest in regions is accompanied by enquiry into the ability of local action to influence economic development planning and longer-term community sustainability.