Ottawa the City: Perceptions of Bigness

[dewline]

I went to a market information session today at one of the non-profits trying to help people like me still looking for (steady/steadier) work. One of the people making presentations in connection with that session made a remark that's sticking with me right now:

"Ottawa is a small town pretending to be a big city."

I have an objection to that, if only because I've seen too much of the place over the past 35 years.

(35 years. I've lived in one city for that long. Yes.)

The Greenbelt encompassing the old core neighbourhoods can enable an illusion like that in the minds of many. The aggravation of there being neighbourhoods on the other side of the river-border Ontario shared with Québec also distorts reality somewhat, with all the side effects that the language laws of la belle province can provide. I accept that as a given. But Ottawa's big-city-ness is still more fact now than pretense.

Comments

[notasupervillain]

I've lived in a small town. Several. I've lived in Kingston and in London (Ontario). Ottawa has opera. It has theatre where the actors are paid. Bands play there on the weekends, not just on Wednesday nights on their way between cities. Ottawa isn't Barcelona, but it's a real city. /Rant

[dewline]

In this, we are in sympathy.