Found space parks should be cheap, in that they don’t require a multi-million dollar lot of land. But the very nature of found space means there are utilities, pavements, and adjacent users that have to be accomodated, so the park structures might be expensive per square metre.

In Toronto’s little Italy there is a small park, split on two sides of a side street, created out of the outer boulevards, a modest street narrowing, about three foregone parking spaces. And created with love and imagination.

About 20 years ago Ottawa had imagination to use some found spaces. There is a delightful mini-park on the boulevard at Argyle-Metcalfe that outperforms many larger parks. And some street closures in Sandy Hill up against Rideau Street have grown into mature greenspaces.

Would that we could see more of these here in Ottawa.

I look forward to when Ottawa regains it lost mojo, and starts turning found spaces, including streets, into people places.