Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
See this article:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Ottawa+...300/story.html
Personally, I've heard this a million times about Ottawa and I call BS on the no-fun image.
Especially when it comes from Canadians when you consider that there is a grand total of only two cities in the entire country (Montreal and St. John's) for which ''fun'' would show up in the top five things that spring to mind about them when you name them.
People from Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and even Toronto* ( ) complaining that Ottawa isn't fun as if their cities' middle name was P-A-R-T-Y? Gimme a break guys.
*Lots of things to do (compared to Ottawa of course), but a let-your-hair-down party city it is not.
|
It's actually quite bad in Ottawa. Having travelled around from Toronto/Montreal to London/Berlin in Europe, Ottawa has absolutely nothing on these cities in terms of evening/night life and general 'events'. Look at it this way, it's the only large city I can think of in the world that doesn't have a major concert venue within walking distance of downtown.... (NAC doesn't count; it only seats 2,500). If you can't even host a decent concert downtown outside of 2 weeks in the summer for Bluesfest, that's a problem.
Just generally there's none of that 'buzz' you get elsewhere. When I'm in Toronto I feel confident walking out my door that I will find something to do no matter what. And there is tons of stuff. I'm a sports fan? Blue Jays, Argos, TFC, Maple Leafs, Raptors; every month of the year there's something. I'm a music fan? There are more venues on one block in Toronto than there are in the entirety of Ottawa. Throw in stuff like a lack of quality architecture. Like how many blank grey cubes do we need in our downtown? That's all that ever seems to get built.
It's a numbers game to some degree, but really Ottawa suffers from the highest per-capita 'nimbyism' and just regulation of everything I've ever seen. There's no flexibility for businesses to take risks or do what they can to spruce up the downtown. Look at Spark's street. That could be something..but it's basically nothing.
Don't get me wrong, it's getting a lot better with TD Place and Lansdowne being built into an alternative downtown scene with more to offer, but still...at this rate we'll never catch up with Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto.