We make all sorts of divisions between our public life and personal-professional lives. Cities have been organized and planned to reinforce that supposedly natural and logical division. Mais la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 est un peu plus compliqu\u00e9e. When I started to recognize how my language was getting coded in space, it made sense but it also made me uncomfortable. Je suis universitaire, urbaniste, et activiste. Ma profession est une profession publique. Comment se peut-il que mes espaces soient presque toujours des espaces anglais? How could I live in a French city and learn and write about it in English?<\/p>\n
This detour through and reflection on language and the city, has given me perspective on the way Ottawans speak and think of Montreal. In many instances, a key mistranslation occurs when we mistake tourist and entertainment spaces as public spaces. Bien \u00e9videmment les r\u00e9sidents profitent des \u00e9v\u00e9nements et des grands projets mais souvent ces manifestations urbaines perturbent leur vie quotidienne. Par exemple, deux grandes sections de la rue Saint Catherine deviennent des rues pi\u00e9tonni\u00e8res pendant l\u2019\u00e9t\u00e9, mais elles sont surtout destin\u00e9es aux touristes et aux divertissements : le quartier des spectacles et le village gai.<\/p>\n
In Ottawa, we also give streets over to people. Sparks Street was pedestrianized in 1967 and unlike St-Cath, stays that way year-round. Tourists love it. Its generic restaurants and blockbuster events are always packed with people. This is critiqued by Ottawa locals while simultaneously lusting after its Montreal analogue. Montreal supports greater nightlife and attracts more tourists on the street, and maybe does so with greater flair, mais je doute que ce degr\u00e9 de publicit\u00e9 soit vraiment le r\u00e9sultat de la pi\u00e9tonisation.<\/p>\n
Il est cependant vrai que les espaces touristiques ne sont pas les seuls o\u00f9 l\u2019on note une plus grande pr\u00e9sence publique \u00e0 Montr\u00e9al. In the summer, public parks are packed with people using the space in different ways. Parks are not just for sports, kids, and dogs. \u00c0 Montr\u00e9al on re\u00e7oit souvent un invitation pour une f\u00eate, un bbq, un date dans tel ou tel parc. BYOB. People treat parks like a mix of backyards, playgrounds and patios, partly because few people downtown have their own backyard but also because social behaviour is not mistaken for deviant behaviour and regulated.<\/p>\n
We do not need to invite internationally acclaimed artist to install a great piece of public art in the park. We do not need designated, corded off adult-only beer gardens or more licensed patios where people can buy $8 beer. Je n\u2019ai rien contre le principe mais ni l\u2019un ni l\u2019autre ne vont recr\u00e9er la vie publique de Montr\u00e9al \u00e0 Ottawa. But both are mistranslations of the urban conditions that contribute to greater social life in public spaces. They try to translate into our own legal and civil ways of constructing public space. Therein lies a problem of lusting after the kind of Montreal urbanism that we see in social media. It tries to translate individual words instead of whole stories. M\u00eame si l\u2019on pouvait traduite l\u2019histoire de Montr\u00e9al \u00e0 Ottawa, we would get a Montreal without its nuance and lose Ottawa\u2019s own story.<\/p>\n
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