photo by Images of Centretown

This just hit the Spacing Ottawa inblox from the organizers of SAW City Debates: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 7PM Galerie SAW Gallery Screening and Panel Discussion: $5 / Students and Seniors: $3 / Members: Free Galerie SAW Gallery will launch its new multidisciplinary speaker series entitled SAW City Debates with the Ottawa premiere of the feature-length documentary Urbanized by New York City- and London-based filmmaker Gary Hustwit (director of Helvetica and Objectified), which will be followed by a no-holds-barred debate with invited speakers Andrew Cohen from the Ottawa Citizen, Deborah Margo from the University of Ottawa and Barrie McKenna from The Globe and Mail. They will discuss their ideas for the future of Ottawa's cityscape.

Another use has been found for Hintonburg's recently improved Parkdale Park facilities. This past weekend, the park's new clubhouse helped volunteers to host the historic district's first official street hockey tournament, played in front of the renowned Carleton Tavern. Besides the recreational value of the outdoor activity itself, organizer Jeff Leiper said events like the tournament are valuable because "a close-knit community is a safe community". More photos from the event can be seen here.

That's right, Spacing is now offering a subscription to readers who only want to get our national edition! It'll cost you $15 for 2 issues, or $25 for 4 issues. Even better, you can buy it as a gift subscription for someone else! Up until the summer of 2011, the print edition of Spacing had been primarily focused on Toronto urban issues. We happily launched a special national issue in June (we even had an event in July at the NAC's 4th Stage in Ottawa to celebrate the release). The editors of Spacing have ...

photo by Erinn Cunningham

If you can spare 30 or 40 seconds, watch the behaviour of the rushing vehicles in this video, and then compare the numbers of cars and trucks with how many pedestrians are using the sidewalks at this major intersection -- it's the corner of Somerset and Bronson. Somehow the City's traffic engineers would have us believe that widening this road even further will be the best way to achieve a safer street - a street already notorious for its unfriendly pedestrian environment. If you think the City's ...

Spacing Ottawa was at City Hall this evening to hear Gil Peñalosa, the former Commissioner of Parks, Sport and Recreation for the City of Bogotá, speak at Urban Forum's Mobility Summit. Peñalosa is now the Executive Director of 8- 80 Cities, a Toronto-based non-profit that advocates for better walking and cycling infrastructure in cities. Peñalosa creates a real sense of urgency around his topic and absolutely radiates enthusiasm for what can be done - and what is being done - to make cities around the world ...

Across the Spacing urban blog network each week we're asking our readers in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Otttawa, and the Atlantic cities to let us know their favourite things about their respective city. THIS WEEK: What is your favourite pedestrian bridge(s) in Ottawa? If possible, please provide a link to a photo you are commenting about. We suggest using Flickr as the photographers that use this site usually provide the best quality images (and often with ...