A Visitor’s View

In order to appreciate the statistics to be presented in this report, it is useful to stand back from it all and take a bird's- eye view. Suppose we are a first-time visitor arriving at Pearson airport. We are picked up by car and driven to Stratford. What do we see?

For the first 50 kilometers or so of 401 West our visitor sees massive urban growth and heavy 24/7 traffic rushing by on one of the busiest urban corridors in the world. Around Milton our visitor sees the breathtaking Niagara Escarpment and traffic density reduces a little as green space increases. Past the Highway #6 exits (to Guelph and Hamilton) development and traffic density reduces further until the Cambridge interchanges, the gateway to Waterloo Region. Once again, heavy commercial, big box and factory activity is highly visible and this appearance of rapid urban development continues on the # 8 exit to Kitchener/Waterloo and along onto the # 7/8 West exit towards Stratford. When our visitor passes Trussler Road on 7/8 the highway and the landscape broadens into a more leisurely four lane 90 kilometer per hour pace. So far our hypothetical passenger has not stopped moving unless they got caught in gridlock.

At the New Hamburg exits a series of traffic lights slow up the four lanes and define a strong commercial zone. New housing developments are also visible, a response to the job dynamo that is Waterloo region. Then, just past Walker Road a big curve in the highway signals a significant qualitative change in the landscape and its use value. Looking west and north and south our visitor sees only farms and small rural residential properties. The big curve ends with a new set of traffic lights at Road 101 to Tavistock.

Highway 7/8 then dramatically changes into a two lane thoroughfare with traffic being forced to squeeze under the CN overpass. But, except for the village of Shakespeare, the landscape both north and south of 7/8 remains rural and agricultural with large wooded sections all the way to the edge of Stratford.

For our visitor, the highway from New Hamburg to Stratford may superficially look like a twenty-five kilometer corridor of 'green and pleasant land', and for many residents this is why they choose to live here. But in fact, as the statistics will show, it is a 25 kilometer corridor of very intensive agricultural business activity. This corridor contains several of the most productive farm operations in the province and some of the most expensive agricultural properties in North America. It is therefore no accident that our traveler occasionally notices a road-side sign that says, 'Farmers feed cities'.

Highly productive farms require good land, low surrounding population densities and minimal development pressures on the critical land and forest base. West of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), three counties have high agricultural land capabilities, low population densities and low development pressures. These are Perth, Oxford, and Huron. These three counties are undisputed agricultural business powerhouses and this applies particularly to the dairy, beef, hog, and poultry industries. While Waterloo region contains townships where agri-business is a dominant economic factor, and while Wilmot Township is certainly one of these, in the overall scheme of things, Waterloo region has evolved into a largely urbanized municipality.

Thus the municipal boundaries dividing the twin cities of Kitchener/Waterloo and Wilmot Township mark a definite qualitative shift in perceptions of land use from urban use to rural agricultural. The second municipal boundary that divides Waterloo Region and Perth County serves to reinforce that qualitative shift. Due to these very old settlement patterns it is therefore no accident that Wilmot, Perth East and Perth South are major provincial agri-business centres.