The Chinatown Royal Arch on Somerset Street West. Photo by Trevor Pritchard via Flickr.
Apologies for Ottawa
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Apologies for Ottawa
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Reported by Jonathan Migneault
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Ottawa's wide open spaces
Reported on Friday, September 9, 2011
This week, OpenFile and Apartment613 have partnered to present a series of stories—apologies for Ottawa—that show off what makes Ottawa a great place to live. We drew inspiration from ideas readers submitted to both websites. In our final installation, Drew Gough writes about our amazing open spaces.
In January of 2008, I was standing in the middle of a forest with two dozen freezing Brazilians.
By Ottawa winter standards, it wasn’t a particularly cold day, but these teenagers—in Ottawa for a month as part of a language exchange—hadn’t dressed for the part: jeans and light jackets, running shoes and ball caps. This was one of the group’s many cultural outings with their English academy: snowshoeing in Gatineau Park.
The cold did little to dissuade the students from enjoying themselves. About halfway through the short hike, one of the chaperones shuffled over to me, the activity leader, and quietly said, “This is amazing. They’ve never seen anything like this.” A few of the students echoed her sentiments.
“Teacher!” they shouted. “You are so lucky to have this so close to your home.”
That’s a feeling that pervades the National Capital Region. You’re hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t taken advantage of the green space in, and near to, the city. This is all by design, says Pierre Dubé, the chief of planning and transporation for the National Capital Commission.
“Master plans for the Greenbelt and Gatineau Park contain strong policies to protect conservation areas, valued ecosystems components, green spaces and agriculture lands,” he writes in an email. “This is considered a sacred trust that the NCC performs on behalf of all Canadians. Protected lands along river shores, pathway and parkway corridors create a network that links all of [the green] assets together.”
The NCC plays a major role in the development and maintenance of natural spaces in the region, with Gatineau Park and the Greenbelt making up a large part of the 11 percent of the capital managed by the NCC. The NCC also looks after the hundreds of kilometres of recreational trails that connect the green areas.
Citizens take advantage of these well-linked green spaces regularly, according to the director of Gatineau Park and the Greenbelt, Marie Boulet.
“Our green spaces are used very heavily,” she says. “Many of the people who use the green spaces are people who live adjacent to those green spaces, so these spaces are really well used and really appreciated by the residents.”
The Greenbelt is visited by 350,000 residents each year, and approximately 10 times per person for about 3.5 million visits annually. The visitor numbers for Gatineau Park are currently being updated, but the most recent statistics (from 1999–2000) indicate that the park sees 1.7 million visits each year.
Jessie Hornby is an Ottawa resident who takes advantage of the city in which she lives. She’s been here for a decade and is something of an amateur apologist (she writes a regular column called The Positivity News that focuses on happier news stories). But she’s also something of a typical Ottawan: she works for the government and she hikes, climbs, cycles, runs and rollerblades around the city.
“I definitely feel a sense of appreciation for Ottawa’s green spaces and waterways on a regular basis,” she says. “This may sound dorky, but there have been times when I’ve been running along the canal in the morning, and the sun is glittering off the water, and I think to myself ‘man, I am so lucky to live here.’”
She says that Ottawa is not unique for simply having places for people to enjoy the outdoors, but for having those places so near at hand.
Boulet would be pleased with this. She sees beyond all of the tangibles—the number of square kilometres and lengths of paths—to grasp at the intangibles: what natural spaces mean to people who live in the capital.
“With all of the green spaces the NCC has preserved and with the different recreational infrastructure we have built over the years, there’s an extensive recreational network that provides quality of life in the Capital region. That’s exceptional, I think,” she says.
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This week, OpenFile and Apartment613 have partnered to present a series of stories—apologies for Ottawa—that show off what makes Ottawa a great place to live. We drew inspiration from ideas readers submitted to both websites. Today, Jonathan Migneault writes about the strength of neighbourhoods.
The strength of neighbourhoods
This past March, Apartment613 ran one of the most popular series in the blog’s history, and it was all about the neighbourhood. Dubbed Neighbourhood Wars!, the posts pitted Ottawa’s diverse neighbourhoods against each other until only one, Hintonburg, stood victorious.
“There are a lot of people with neighbourhood-based loyalties in Ottawa,” says Katrina Marsh, the Apartment613 editor who came up with the idea for the series just as the March Madness college basketball tournament was in full swing in the U.S.
Marsh says that from a cultural standpoint, Ottawa’s neighbourhoods have often picked up the city’s slack through informal local institutions and events such as the Raw Sugar Café on Somerset, and the popular annual Cupcake Camp.
In an Ottawa Citizen op-ed, headlined "The trouble with Ottawa is Ottawans," Andrew Cohen, a Carleton University journalism professor, argued that Ottawa suffers from a great lack of vision.
“Ottawa wouldn't know a new idea—let alone a big idea—if it was accosted by one,” Cohen wrote. “That's how it made a lost opportunity of Lansdowne Park, where it could have done something dazzling. Instead, characteristically, the city will create a conventional enterprise and then declare, oh, it's better than the parking lot.”
Pat O’Brien, the president of the Hintonburg Community Association, says Ottawa’s municipal government is finally beginning to show some vision and shed its reliance on the federal government and the National Capital Commission.
“I do believe the city, previously, has let the government and NCC carry the ball, although they seem to be stepping out now with the light rail and the investments they’re making in that,” O’Brien says.
Hintonburg is often cited as an example of a community that took matters into its own hands to transform itself into a liveable neighbourhood, and a cultural hub within the city.
“Hintonburg has come a long way because of the interest, commitment and dedication of the residents who live here, who 20 years ago looked at the drugs and the prostitution and said, ‘This isn’t the community we want to live in,’” O’Brien says.
With the financial assistance of the Minto Group, the community helped develop the building that now houses the Great Canadian Theatre Company. It's become a cultural institution that attracts visitors from all parts of the city.
Doug Ward, a member of the Friends of Lansdowne citizens’ coalition, says Ottawa needs to apply that kind of community activism more broadly.
“I think there’s a very important role for local groups to play, but I think if you want to transform this city you’re going to have to have a transformational movement of people who get together and work very hard to get good decisions at the electoral level,” Ward says.
Ward says that his organization, which wants Lansdowne Park to be revitalized as a public space, is often associated with the Glebe, where the park is located, but that the issues affect the entire city.
Kitchissippi councillor Katherine Hobbs says Ottawa needs to look at the small steps that have already worked to improve the city. “I think sometimes we need to really recognize what we do have and think about what we want,” she says.
The Ottawa Citizen committed a lot of ink to a recent series on building a better Ottawa. That link is just the first of a five-part series by reporter Mohammed Adam, whose writing addressed a lot of questions, some old and some new, about how Ottawa can evolve for the better. It culminated in a live-chat with mayor Jim Watson about how to build the city. The series identified both frustrations and opportunities.
After the reportage had been done, columnist Andrew Cohen latched on to the frustrations. And he blamed Ottawa's ills on, well, the people who live here. That column divided its readers: many agreed, many disagreed.
A pair of trusted Citizen voices then chimed in: City Hall reporter David Reevely on his blog, and deputy editorial pages editor Kate Heartfield in a column. Both took issue with Cohen's views.
That discussion had us thinking. Ottawa's a vibrant place. It's certainly not a boring place. And there's plenty of stuff to show off, or at least quietly appreciate. In a bid to bring some of these things to light, we're joining forces with our friends at Apartment613 to ask Ottawans what's great about Ottawa.
We're calling it "Apologies for Ottawa," and we need your input.
The process is simple. You tell us where Ottawa excels, what we should show off, and why. Then we'll have a group of freelance writers bring those ideas to life. They'll turn your nugget of an idea into a full-fledged story.
Add your ideas below, and we'll watch intently.
Over at Apartment613, a reader commented on Drew Gough's final piece in our series, seen above, about Ottawa's green spaces:
Respectfully received, too. Thanks for the comment.
Shawarma. And Poutine.
While I am serious about those two (I have yet to find a city anywhere with better Shawarma than Ottawa), our culinary scene generally is worth a shout out. We have so many exciting & edgy restaurants, and even a couple 5-star ones. We have all sorts of ethnic food, food & restaurant districts (ex: the ByWard Market, Somerset Village, Preston Street, Epicurian Row in Wellington West) and even the Cordon Bleu!
As a small business owner in Ottawa, one of the things I love most about Ottawa is the sense of community there is between small business owners. We all realize that Ottawa's small business community is nascent, and so there is this sense that we're all in this together, and each of our success depends on us all supporting each other - whether it be retail, restaurants, design, event planning, music - you name it. We don't view each other as competitors, even small businesses in the same industry - and this is quite different than what it's like in Montreal and Toronto. This makes for a very supportive environment to start a new business in, and I think the increasing number of young business owners is a testament to that!
While the City of Ottawa did a poor job of promoting this, they did embark on an interesting crowdsourcing and citizen engagement exercise over the summer called 'Have a Say'. The results of this are in - very good ideas and about 3 times the engagement they were expecting. The results will be released in mid September. I am with Ottawa start-up Ideavibes and they used our crowd engagement platform to crowdsource ideas around sustainability. Watch the City of Ottawa website for the results coming up.
I can name at least 7 burlesque/vaudeville troupes in Ottawa (ahem: Rockalily, Capital Tease, Browncoats Burlesque, Sin Sisters, Sexual Overtones, Bourbon & Spice, Riot Grrl). That's more burlesque performers per capita than many larger cities can claim! (I'm looking at you, Montreal.) I find it hard to characterize our city as sleepy or uncreative when we have such a vibrant performance arts scene, of which burlesque is just one example. I mean, I might spend my days in an office cubicle, but by night I breathe fire and I certainly don't think that's boring.
Obviously Ottawa has plenty of room to improve, but that doesn't mean that what we've got isn't pretty great!
It's kinda hard to pick just one thing, but I must say canal and river parkways make Ottawa a pretty exceptional place to run. A city like Guelph might have an unusual concentration of really talented runners, but this city must have the highest concentration of average-joe participants (although I'm sure there's plenty of talent too). The Hintonburg 5K is a great example. How many cities have races launched by a neighbourhood association? It's a a city full of folks with drive and focus and heart -- kinda like a city of runners.
Oh and the Writers Festival, independent theatres (we love the Mayfair), gelateria galore, farmers markets and a real sense of community.
The music festivals! As a relative newbie to Ottawa (moved here a year ago) I really enjoy the varied music scene. I went to both chamber music festivals and enjoyed every second; the NAC is brilliant too. My list of indie/pop etc bands to see this side of Christmas is already very long.
Ottawa has a thriving literary community with readings, spoken word showcases, signings and festivals; the Ottawa International Writers Festival takes place twice a year and brings in writers from all over the world. VerseFest is a week-long poetry festival that had its first year last year. If you visit bywords.ca and take a look at the calendar of events you will see that there is something going on pretty much every day whether it be a poetry reading, a mystery book signing, the launch of a vampire novel, a monthly comic making get together, a writing workshop, a slam, Ottawa's literary scene is thriving. The City of Ottawa supports many literary organizations to help create a city that will be entertaining and enjoyable for all.
Ottawa does mainstreets very well. Our Little Italy/Preston is more walkable, clean and physically appealing than in other cities. Chinatown (Somerset), The Glebe, Wellington West, and Westboro are also good mainstreets that are also walkable, clean and appealing to the eye and will get even better over time.
Apology for Ottawa's embarrassement of cultural riches
Ottawa has an abundance of communities of interest, many of them connected by a well networked group of talented and passionate individuals:
- hand-made goods/crafters (cupcakes, upcycled fashion, jewellery makers, etc.)
- festivals (writer's festival, Ottawa International Film Festival, WestFest, Animation festival, Jazz, Blues, etc.)
- fashion, design, photography, art galleries, artist studios and local business
- farmer markets
- social meetups (design groups, social media groups, artists, etc.)
...
There are too many to mention. The point is that Ottawa has something for EVERYBODY, all year round, we just need to promote this better and change people's perceptions of this great city!
This comment comes from Jean-Pierre Dubois-Godin on Twitter:
The strength of neighborhoods. I agree that Ottawa doesn't do grand very well. It is fantastic at small. There are a number of tight-knit communities in Ottawa that do things for the greater good: The Glebe and Ottawa South come to mind, but so does Centretown, Hintonburg, Preston, and Carlington. They all share one thing in common: A community centre where people can congregate outside the realm of shopping and commerce.
The problem with such neighborhood strength is that people that don't live in such neighborhoods, resent it. The Lansdowne case comes to mind. Much of the support for Lansdowne is barely-concealed spite for The Glebe.
Since amalgamation that's the majority of the city, as continued characterless sprawl has spread out the city without support for new communities.
How about the community gardens on U of O's campus? They have only been in place for a few years now but are free and available to the community.