Urban Meltdown: Cities, Climate Change and Politics as Usual

Speaker: Clive Doucet, City of Ottawa
councillor
Date: Monday, Jan 14, 2008
Time:
7:30 pm
Location: Alice MacKay Room of the Central
Branch of the Vancouver
Public Library (350 West Georgia).
Admission is
Free

Lecture synopsis:
"Urban Meltdown:
Cities, Climate Change and Politics as Usual" is a reflection on 40 years of
urban activism for more sustainable cities.   One of the questions the author
poses is - why does urban sprawl continue more fiercely than ever half a centure
after Jane Jacobs and many others have filled libraries documenting the
destructive effects of mall/sprawl?   What happened to the Sixties and what can
we learn from those failed dreams is another subject the author explores to
connect the past with the present.   Another question deals with the phenomenon
of Just in Time delivery and how this has changed the landscape.  The author,
Clive Doucet, has been a city councillor in Ottawa
for ten years and in the author of plays, poems, novels and memoirs.   In 2004,
he was voted Canada's
Greenest City Councillor.

Bio of speaker:
In 2004,
Clive Doucet was chosen as Canada's
Greenest City Councillor.   It recognized his lifelong work to halt expressway
sprawl and promote pedestrian oriented, people, not car focused communities.  He
has championed Ottawa's pilot light rail project, new sidewalk and intersection
standards for the city.   He's the author of plays, novels, memoirs and poems. 
His most recent book is "Urban Meltdown: Cities, Climate Change and Politics as
Usual". Clive is married with two children and three grandchildren.