HomeEven if you are not one of the Canadians who live in the Capital region, you still benefit from the planning that has gone into making this a distinctively Canadian Capital. Canada is young, geographically broad and culturally diverse. The federal government — through the NCC — is planning the Capital region to support Canada’s evolution as a nation.
When we set out to develop a new plan, whether for the entire Capital or for a specific area, we start with a vision — a kind of picture of what the Capital should be in 20 to 50 years’ time. These visions express ideas that, over the next half century, will help to develop the Capital as an expression of Canada.
- For Canadians, who gather in the Capital to recognize common values and history.
- For the rest of the world, whose travellers visit the Capital to learn about Canada and its people.
Imagine the Capital a Century Ago
Ottawa was an industrial town choked with railways and factories. The planners who set out to transform it into a great Capital were visionaries — politicians, planners, architects, engineers, landscape architects, business people and residents — who shared a common idea of what the Capital region should become. That consensus was the single-most important reason why it has been able to evolve into a national Capital that is worthy of the quality of life in Canada.
Imagine the Capital of the Next Century
Today’s planners have their own vision, one based on a sense of the natural world as a framework, a commitment to organic rather than monumental development and a realization that the Capital ought to express Canada’s great social, physical and institutional diversity. The visionaries of today foresee the Capital region as:
- centering around an urban heart with impressive views of Parliament Hill and public spaces where people can live, work and celebrate Canada
- a city ringed with wild and natural lands — Gatineau Park and the Greenbelt — safeguarded in perpetuity
- a place where city and nature meet, where natural landscapes and views are integrated into the built environment and act as a backdrop for national events and daily life
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