My opinion piece last week on policies on rural startups drew a range of responses, many of them disagreeing with my premise.

You can read my arguments here for policies that encourage startups in population centres, rather than rural areas. I want to highlight a few of the responses on social media.

Here’s what Bob Pelley, Innovacorp’s regional manager for Cape Breton and Northern Nova Scotia, said:

“I will respectfully disagree with you on this one, Peter. Yes, there are more startups in urban area, but I believe that is simply related to population. Suggesting that government only support start-up activity in urban areas is akin to suggesting they only support fires departments in urban areas because that’s where the biggest and most active fires occur.

“I believe that what’s more important than population to start-ups, is community. While that community might be easily found in population centres, it can also be found in small communities and in today’s connected world, online.

“We have an ease, and freedom of travel like no other time in history and start-ups are using that to find communities of support and build relationships that have meaning for their growth and development.

“A number of start-ups I work with use remote workers and remote contractors to help them build and grow. We live in a connected world and it’s never been easier to do this. It allows the founders, like Chad Munro, to choose where they want to live, whether that be Mabou or Montreal.”

Added Permjot Valia, the Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Momentum Cape Breton:

“And to be fair.... at a North American level, Halifax wouldn’t pass the ‘urban’ test. So it is arbitrary -- and I don’t think it’s a healthy development to think of only one place in a province as urban.”

I was also asked how I’d define “population centres”. I’d say they are the four provincial capitals, Sydney, Saint John and Moncton, and I’d draw a wide radius around each of these cities. Let me repeat that Sydney and the Cape Breton Regional Municipality comprise one of the region’s municipalities with about 100,000 people – almost as big as Greater Fredericton. CBRM definitely should be nurtured as a startup centre.

Charlottetown has a population of only 36,000 but more people live a short drive away. 

The column did receive some positive feedback from people who agreed with it, mainly through private correspondence.