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Selling national urban renewal: the National Film Board, the National Capital Commission and post-war planning in Ottawa, Canada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2010

ROGER M. PICTON
ROGER M. PICTON*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, Trent University, 1600 West Bank Drive, Peterborough, ON, K9J 7B8, Canada
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Abstract:

Using film and archival evidence, this article focuses on post-war urban redevelopment in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. During this period, two federal institutions, the National Capital Commission and the National Film Board, worked in tandem to disseminate the promise of post-war urban renewal. Film and planning techniques perfected during World War II would be used to sell national urban renewal to Canadians. Rooted in centralized planning, steeped in militarist rhetoric and embedded in authoritarian tendencies, federal plans for a new modern capital had tragic implications for the marginalized and dislocated residents of the inner-city neighbourhood of LeBreton Flats.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , August 2010 , pp. 301 - 321
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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