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magazine / mj06
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May/June 2006 issue |
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2020 vision
The City of Ottawa embraces a new formula for growing smarter
By Steven Fick and Elizabeth Shilts
Click to enlarge
But when 11 municipalities and the regional government amalgamated to form the new City
of Ottawa in 2001, it was an opportunity to learn from the past. And now, with a new official
plan in place, the city is aiming to grow smarter into 2020.
Citizens helped develop a plan based on "smart growth" principles, which emerged
in the mid-1990s in response to poor urban planning across North America. Smart growth makes
cities more sustainable and liveable by curbing sprawl, encouraging densification and redevelopment
of land within an urban boundary, offering mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly main streets and
diverse housing, and connecting it all with public transit.
Ned Lathrop, Ottawa’s deputy manager of planning and growth management, believes
that it is critically important that cities like his stick to smart plans. "The larger
cities in the country are where all the citizens are going," he says. "We’re
getting all the growth, and we need to be sustainable for the country to thrive."
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• Small, compact, relatively high-density urban area
• Pedestrian-oriented; people live near shops and work
• Extensive railway network serves industry; one streetcar line connects villages west
of the core |
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• Expansion along east-west streetcar line begins in the 1920s
• Major roads built for increasing number of automobiles and dispersed communities crop
up along these thoroughfares
• Consumption of urban land more than doubles; densities fall |
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• Suburbs expand to the east, west and south of the core
• Bus-only transitway services most suburban areas. Highway 417 expanded in the mid-1980s
and highway 416 completed in 1999. More than 60 percent of Ottawans drive to work
• Amalgamated City of Ottawa established in 2001 |
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