By Brigitte Pellerin, Ottawa Citizen, March 6, 2019
Maybe you didn’t notice the news. Unless you live in Nepean or work in the business, you probably don’t care all that much that the City of Ottawa last week gave the go-ahead for a new filmmaking complex and creative centre to be built in a big old field across from the Nepean Sportsplex.
I live nearby (my jogging path runs by it), and for a while there I was very active in indie film production. But that’s not why I’m excited.
I like this development very much because it goes well with one of the potential avenues for development that municipal staff put together in their Ottawa Next: Beyond 2036 study. It’s also a great way to make people’s life triangles tiny.
Let me explain.
(...)I get the appeal of the pretty little house in the suburb with a patch of grass and nature nearby. But the dream is a victim of its own success. So many people want it that suburbs are now crammed and expanding even farther. Why, just last week we heard there would be as many as 2,000 new homes built on a field in Riverside South. Lovely area for sure, but not practical if you work downtown. That’s why we need more jobs in the suburbs, and not just in restaurants and stores. Anchors. We need them.
https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/pellerin-a-plan-to-make-life-in-ottawas-suburbs-about-more-than-dreary-commutes