How do we get these kinds of messages out to the public at large, to councillors and potential councillor and mayoral candidates so this kind of smart change happens?
Overall, I'm very supportive of the initiatives you outline. But, it remains that Ottawa is governed as a suburban city, not an urban one. Several consequences that are sticky. One, for example, is planning decisions biased to retaining existing suburbs at the expense of downtown neighbourhoods. 'Revitalization' of downtown Ottawa = zombie streets such as Rideau Street. That is, no soft city development, only towers with poor street life.
The brilliance of Ottawa is that a very small parcel of central Ottawa's tax base supports the rest of the expansive city, with very little investment allowing Centretown, the Market or Sandy Hill to aspire to being an already dense livable neighbourhood - rather than its evolution to stacked units of people who don't know each other and lacking 15-minute services (e.g loss of hardware stores) Consider a comparison of services in Lowertown versus say, Orleans. If you spread the density and tax base deeper into the suburbs, you may actually end up with a proper healthy urban inner city, but much of the existing tax base feeds the broad stroads of our suburbs.
Most flawed cities are pyramids (central towers, diminishing out to larger and larger parcels of private property). Garden cities, with proper public transit, would relieve the pressure and just maybe create truly urban streets (activated with people, reduced commuter roads, revived high streets etc.)
Until someone actually breaks up the majority voting of suburban and rural councilors on urban decisions, then that long-ago strategy by the Harris government will continue to perpetuate dead inner cities. Again, walk down Rideau Street now....A tower street dependent on cars travelling out to the suburbs for services.
Neil, I'm all with you on the merits of a repurposed Wellington Street and turning the Queen Elisabeth side of the Canal into an urban park (I'd like the latter to go all the way to Laurier Avenue). Hey, I even went out of my way to get the t-shirt! You're also right to point to the ridiculous amounts of money that continues to be spent on new roads (while so many others crumble).
But I don't think there is any profit in laying all or much of the blame on the Mayor. This kind of personalizing reminds me of Ken Gray's (The Bulldog) interminable attacks on Jim Watson. It had zero effect, imo. Neither will harping on the failures of the Mayor (even though they're obvious).
Instead, let's be relentless on putting forward good ideas, and work with Councillors and staff to promote them. We thought we had a "new" Council after the last election and some new faces are indeed promising, but mostly Council members are dependent on staff's advice, afraid to step outside it -- in any case there is no majority to move in a more radical direction.
By refusing to renew the senior levels of staff (or perhaps simply unable to do so because no-one was found; Steve Willis quit in frustration) it's a sure bet that not much progress will be made during this Mayor's first term. Let's make it his last -- not by attacking him personally, but by demonstrating the inadequacies of his, his senior staff's and Council's decisions through constructive criticism.
Erwin - I wholeheartedly agree that tearing the Mayor down personally does nothing to advance the ideas that are being mentioned here. Diminishing other projects doesn't favourably advance your own. So inject some positivity into the mix, and you'll be better heard and received.
Well written Neil. Unfortunately, the mayor we have is the Mayor the majority of the people who bothered to vote during the last municipal election supported. It was a vote for the status quo. How can we encourage voters to opt for progressive candidates like Catherine McKenny?
I like some of the ideas that are suggested in this article, but I don't agree that Mayor Sutcliffe is personally to blame for these decisions. To me, tearing down an individual with a sprawled out City and City Council like Ottawa doesn't get you the to the end. Just makes enemies.
I don't think that the City of Ottawa should be giving a penny to the NCC - they exist only in Ottawa to manage federal spaces. They have the money and resources coming out the wazoo, and our Mayor is right not to feed their pockets. The NCC needs to take responsibility for the areas that they govern - the best example is the underutilized courtyards in the Market. Some of the most pedestrian friendly spaces we have and the NCC needs to start there. The lack of programming, safety measures, beautification, and leasing of commercial space in the courtyards needs to be addressed before we build a Park on the canal (for example - the entire canal is a park, IMHO, and doesn't need more pedestrianization).
You can't simply REMOVE the parking on York street without a plan. I think the work that's being done on ByWard and William streets is making a lot of sense. The parking garage on Clarence/Parent is coming down in less than 2 years, and I feel that that will change the entire landscape of the Market. We need parking - but it doesn't need to be in the centre of it all. A garage in the church parking lot at Parent/St. Patrick is what I'm hoping for.
Anyways, I'm done for now. LOL But I could talk about the Market and Ottawa all day!
That said, it's very difficult as a business owner to get to my business to make deliveries. We need to be able to access the centre of the Market at least at certain times. There's a lot of coordination that would need to take place. The talks are happening, but it's taking a long time.
Either way, my goal in all of this, is to make ByWard Market something that everyone in Ottawa can be proud of... again. I'm proud of it today and always. But not everyone sees the love that is there. I want to expose that.
How do we get these kinds of messages out to the public at large, to councillors and potential councillor and mayoral candidates so this kind of smart change happens?
Overall, I'm very supportive of the initiatives you outline. But, it remains that Ottawa is governed as a suburban city, not an urban one. Several consequences that are sticky. One, for example, is planning decisions biased to retaining existing suburbs at the expense of downtown neighbourhoods. 'Revitalization' of downtown Ottawa = zombie streets such as Rideau Street. That is, no soft city development, only towers with poor street life.
The brilliance of Ottawa is that a very small parcel of central Ottawa's tax base supports the rest of the expansive city, with very little investment allowing Centretown, the Market or Sandy Hill to aspire to being an already dense livable neighbourhood - rather than its evolution to stacked units of people who don't know each other and lacking 15-minute services (e.g loss of hardware stores) Consider a comparison of services in Lowertown versus say, Orleans. If you spread the density and tax base deeper into the suburbs, you may actually end up with a proper healthy urban inner city, but much of the existing tax base feeds the broad stroads of our suburbs.
Most flawed cities are pyramids (central towers, diminishing out to larger and larger parcels of private property). Garden cities, with proper public transit, would relieve the pressure and just maybe create truly urban streets (activated with people, reduced commuter roads, revived high streets etc.)
Until someone actually breaks up the majority voting of suburban and rural councilors on urban decisions, then that long-ago strategy by the Harris government will continue to perpetuate dead inner cities. Again, walk down Rideau Street now....A tower street dependent on cars travelling out to the suburbs for services.
Neil, I'm all with you on the merits of a repurposed Wellington Street and turning the Queen Elisabeth side of the Canal into an urban park (I'd like the latter to go all the way to Laurier Avenue). Hey, I even went out of my way to get the t-shirt! You're also right to point to the ridiculous amounts of money that continues to be spent on new roads (while so many others crumble).
But I don't think there is any profit in laying all or much of the blame on the Mayor. This kind of personalizing reminds me of Ken Gray's (The Bulldog) interminable attacks on Jim Watson. It had zero effect, imo. Neither will harping on the failures of the Mayor (even though they're obvious).
Instead, let's be relentless on putting forward good ideas, and work with Councillors and staff to promote them. We thought we had a "new" Council after the last election and some new faces are indeed promising, but mostly Council members are dependent on staff's advice, afraid to step outside it -- in any case there is no majority to move in a more radical direction.
By refusing to renew the senior levels of staff (or perhaps simply unable to do so because no-one was found; Steve Willis quit in frustration) it's a sure bet that not much progress will be made during this Mayor's first term. Let's make it his last -- not by attacking him personally, but by demonstrating the inadequacies of his, his senior staff's and Council's decisions through constructive criticism.
Erwin - I wholeheartedly agree that tearing the Mayor down personally does nothing to advance the ideas that are being mentioned here. Diminishing other projects doesn't favourably advance your own. So inject some positivity into the mix, and you'll be better heard and received.
Well written Neil. Unfortunately, the mayor we have is the Mayor the majority of the people who bothered to vote during the last municipal election supported. It was a vote for the status quo. How can we encourage voters to opt for progressive candidates like Catherine McKenny?
I like some of the ideas that are suggested in this article, but I don't agree that Mayor Sutcliffe is personally to blame for these decisions. To me, tearing down an individual with a sprawled out City and City Council like Ottawa doesn't get you the to the end. Just makes enemies.
I don't think that the City of Ottawa should be giving a penny to the NCC - they exist only in Ottawa to manage federal spaces. They have the money and resources coming out the wazoo, and our Mayor is right not to feed their pockets. The NCC needs to take responsibility for the areas that they govern - the best example is the underutilized courtyards in the Market. Some of the most pedestrian friendly spaces we have and the NCC needs to start there. The lack of programming, safety measures, beautification, and leasing of commercial space in the courtyards needs to be addressed before we build a Park on the canal (for example - the entire canal is a park, IMHO, and doesn't need more pedestrianization).
You can't simply REMOVE the parking on York street without a plan. I think the work that's being done on ByWard and William streets is making a lot of sense. The parking garage on Clarence/Parent is coming down in less than 2 years, and I feel that that will change the entire landscape of the Market. We need parking - but it doesn't need to be in the centre of it all. A garage in the church parking lot at Parent/St. Patrick is what I'm hoping for.
Anyways, I'm done for now. LOL But I could talk about the Market and Ottawa all day!
That said, it's very difficult as a business owner to get to my business to make deliveries. We need to be able to access the centre of the Market at least at certain times. There's a lot of coordination that would need to take place. The talks are happening, but it's taking a long time.
Either way, my goal in all of this, is to make ByWard Market something that everyone in Ottawa can be proud of... again. I'm proud of it today and always. But not everyone sees the love that is there. I want to expose that.