Capital Culture- Part II

Diving back into our (un)biased comparative analysis of Washington DC and Ottawa, I present to you the second and final chapter. Whose self-presentation reveals a mightier political identity and more progressive national values? Answering such a question requires that we first look at….

4) Representation of Leadership

I’m reminded of something Naomi Klein recently suggested, that, “we aren’t taught the history of social movements- we’re taught the history of great men.” This is very much the case on the National Mall, where Lincoln, Jefferson and FDR are all encapsulated in their separate, walled enclosures where they alone are credited with turning the course of history. Depressingly, the only memorials for collective action are those of war.

Canada at first seems to follow this model. Most of the statues placed around Parliament Hill are of dead white politicians, elevated and stern in expression. However, I think this reading is subverted somewhat by the circumambulatory positioning of all the statues facing the back of the Hill. Rather than presiding over their own mausoleum to history, Canada’s statues of great men seem to be moving collectively towards the central block of Parliament, entering into a larger structure of democratic government. I like that the statues stand together rather than apart and seem to invite acknowledgement instead of idealization.

Points: A half point to Canada, since I’m not entirely sure this alignment was intentional.

USA 0 Canada 2

5) Civic Design

Washington D.C. is and always has been a bureaucrat’s town. It was built from the ground up with the express purpose of serving as the nation’s capital and as such it bears the hygienic traces of being a planned city. Ordered into quadrants in relation to the Capital Building and neatly labelled alphanumerically, the streets of DC would seem to create a rational space equal to the mathematical elegance of the city’s Neoclassical style. Instead, this veneer of order disguises deep-seated inequalities and wilful blindness toward the elements that resist the ideal. A banal example is the absence of a J street, presumably because the civic designer couldn’t come up with a namesake for that letter.

A more serious issue is the disenfranchisement of DC’s citizens. Officially belonging to no state, residents of DC cannot vote equally in elections and have limited civic funding resources for municipal projects. Compound these issues with high poverty rates in the inner city that are largely divided across racial lines and you can find a lot of frustration brewing in the seat of the nation. Many DC license plates come with the slogan “No Taxation Without Representation” and the city is full of advocacy groups fiercely trying to enact change. However, this doesn’t seem to be a high priority to the government workers who commute from suburbs in Maryland and Virginia. It’s certainly not a side of DC that’s made immediately visible to tourists.

At the same time, these pockets of resistance to the outward order of the city provide a space for unique cultures to grow and dissenting perspectives to be expressed. The city’s non-profit organizations are fully engaged in their communities and I found living on the cusp of the inner city to be a rewarding and enjoyable experience. They also have a vegan bakery there. That counts for a lot.

Ottawa, in contrast, grew organically around the trade highway of the Ottawa river. Originally a timber town, it was designated by the Queen as the capital of the Province of Canada in 1857 due to its proximity to both English and French Canada (and its distance from the American border). Today it’s the top city in Canada in terms of quality of life, it’s fully 1/3 bilingual, and increasingly bike friendly. The winding path of the canals makes for excellent park space, niche cafes, and promenades. It’s not the most straightforward city to navigate, but its surprises are generally good ones.

Points: A point to America for making the best out of a bad situation. A point to Canada for being generally pleasant.

USA 1 Canada 3

6) Care of Wayward Kitties

I don’t recall seeing a single animal out on the National Mall, not even a leashed dog. At Parliament Hill, however, I could catch glimpses of cats darting in and out of the bushes by the river, looking generally devious and resting at the feet of monuments. This is because there’s a Parliament-shaped cat sanctuary where strays can find food and shelter. Not only is this both awesome and novel, I think it’s just as effective as monumental architecture and commemorative statues in presenting our values as a nation. I see, in our regard for the welfare of lost kittens, a comparable commitment to supporting immigration and providing a social safety net for all Canadians. Canada, we are those wayward kitties and I think that’s pretty swell.

Points: Kitties!

USA 1 Canada 4

Conclusions

Holding the experience of Ottawa and DC up in contrast with one another illuminates two distinct attitudes and self-presentations. Neither is entirely coherent, but it would seem that the United States generally has a more idealistic vision of history and its actors, and has a certain agenda to impress its visitors through scale and polish. Canada, conversely, makes space for multiple narratives of history while holding our identity as negotiable rather than enshrined. We could do more in our actions and self-representations to achieve a more equitable and democratic society, but at least we take the perpetual comfort that we aren’t quite American yet.

At this point I’ve realized that all this patriotic chest thumping runs contrary to the paradoxical Canadian ideal of being proudly humble. And yet, I must confess, I am secretly very smug.