Guest post contributed by Angela Plant, Jane’s Walk Ottawa Organizing Committee.
Every year Jane’s Walk convenes close to 2,000 Ottawa residents (May 5-6, 2018) to walk their city in a festival of over 60 community-led, free walking tours that put people in touch with their city.
Jane’s Walk began in May, 2007 in Toronto, and spread quickly. it was founded in honour of the ideas of Jane Jacobs. Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) was an urbanist and activist whose writings championed a fresh, community-based approach to understanding, organizing, designing, and building cities. She had no formal training as a planner, and yet her 1961 best-seller, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and her later books introduced ground-breaking ideas about how cities function, evolve, and succeed or fail.
In 2008, the festival was held in ten Canadian cities: here in Ottawa, as well as in Charlottetown, Halifax, Toronto, Guelph, London (ON), Thornbury-Clarksburg (ON), Winnipeg, Calgary, and Vancouver. Over 6000 people across Canada took part. It is now international.
We welcome you to attend one or more of our walks on the weekend of May 5-6! We promise that you will learn something, meet new people and come away feeling energized with ideas. Visit our website to view an interactive map of the walks!
We especially invite you to our Launch Event, a Jane’s Mob, May 3rd, Parkdale Park!
Here are some great green walks this year:
*Bike Tour: Riveting Rivers — The evolving role of our waterways in city-building
*Sustainable Farming in the Greenbelt
*Right Side of the Tracks: Redevelopment and greenspace along the Trillium Line
*Preserving Heritage Trees; How One Community Did it
Check out the full schedule of walks on the Jane’s Walk Ottawa website!
Green Living Ottawa 