About Us

Welcome to Strong Towns Ottawa! We are a local chapter of the Strong Towns movement, dedicated to making Ottawa a more financially resilient and livable city.

Who We Are

Strong Towns Ottawa is a local chapter of Strong Towns. We advocate for a more financially resilient and livable Ottawa. We aim to build a safer city that enables all of us to choose the way we want to live. This includes investing in various transportation options, housing types, safer streets, mixed-use neighbourhoods, local businesses, and more!

Our members are found throughout the city, from the urban core to the suburbs, rural areas, and even some from Gatineau! We believe that no matter what part of the city you’re from, you stand to benefit from building a city that allows for more freedom and options to live your life as you please.

What We Do

We get involved at the local level through our campaigns, such as:

  • pushing for bus lanes on Bank Street
  • mobilizing our members to provide feedback on surveys
  • attending consultations
  • hosting an urbanist book club
  • getting people involved in their local community associations and more.

Overall, we take the next smallest step that will put us on the right track for our city, such as advocating for safer pedestrian facilities like sidewalks, narrowing roads with paint/bollards to keep speeds at safe levels, making our public transit more efficient with painted bus lanes, etc. All of these changes are relatively minor investments from the city, but can have large impacts in the short term, which put us on the right track for more positive changes in the future.

If you have projects that you think align with our goals of a more financially sustainable and safer city, one that gives people more housing options, better transportation options, and helps people feel part of a community, then reach out to us at team@strongtownsottawa.ca, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Get Involved

If you are interested in joining our movement, we are most active on Discord, where we have different channels dedicated to different projects. You can also discuss general topics like housing, transportation, and urban design. If you are not familiar with Discord or need help setting it up, feel free to reach out to our team e-mail (team@strongtownsottawa.ca) and we’d be happy to help.

If you have ideas for how to improve your area, want to help with some of our currently ongoing initiatives, want to connect with like-minded people interested in improving our city, or just want to come hang out at our socials/book club, we’d love to have you join us!

You can connect with us at: