ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on one site, the city of Ottawa – within the Province of Ontario, where the planning basic rules are set out for municipalities like Ottawa – where intensification has become an integral part of the language of planners and local politicians. It explores this through an analysis of newspaper coverage of conflicts over intensification in Ottawa, Ontario. The chapter shows the interventions as nevertheless part of the politics of low carbon urban transitions: much of the politics goes on in hidden, subtle ways, and does not need to be articulated explicitly in relation to climate change in order for one to consider it as part of urban climate politics. It outlines the general themes that animate conflicts over the projects and then explores the questions of culture and political economy, via analysis of conflicts over some specific projects in the city, before returning to consider some broader implications for thinking about low carbon urban transitions.