Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
Spacing’s Jake Schabas takes readers to the campus of Dalhousie University for a tour of the school’s relationship with its modernist architectural heritage. Schabas compares the buildings constructed during the boom of the 1960’s and those built during the campus’s recent boom times today. It is a comparison that finds some favour in the designs of the past, and presents a case for caring these concrete buildings into the future.
As G8 development minister convened on Halifax this past week, protesters took to the streets to shine light on Nova Scotia’s problems with affordable housing. Emma Feltes discusses some of the startling comparisons the protesters made between the economic thinking of the G8 and the gentrification of Halifax’s North End. As the province turns affordable housing projects over to the private sector questions are raised about who’s interests are really being served.
Understanding how public transit and the broader issue of mobility truely affect a neighbourhood is a fascinating and critical part of the debate on how to get more transit built. Mile Thomas explores issues of mobility in the Montreal-Nord borough. Describing the area as exiled from the rest of the city, Thomas breaks down the real trials mobility presents to area residents and considers how such isolation has been allowed to happen in an advanced, developed country.
John Lorinc used his column this week to continue the evolving discussion over the future of the Transit City project, thrown into turmoil by the Provincial Government’s decision to ‘delay’ funding. Lorinc explores the reactions of a spectrum of candidates for both the mayoral and Provincial elections, to seek there true intentions and speculate about the future of the project’s funding.
The Hot Doc’s documentary film festival kicked off this week. With so many films to choose from, Jaqueline Whyte Appleby offers a guide to the urbanist films being screened.
This weekend is Jane’s Walks time all across Canada, and the world. Ottawa will play host to a number of different walks over the next two days all with great experience to offer. Evan Thornton previews a few of Ottawa’s walks that will be likely be of interest to the Spacing minded.
Continuing on the Jacobian theme, David Mcclelland takes a look at downtown Ottawa today and asks: What Would Jane Jacobs Do?. Using a series of principles Jacob’s laid out in her classic Life and Death of Great American Cities Mccleslland evaluates how well downtown Ottawa stands up and what various proposals of the 1960’s could have done.