To coincide with the launch of Spacing's first national issue, the magazine is hosting events in 10 Canadian cities this summer. The Spacing Road Show is sponsored by BMO SmartSteps for Homeowners and supported by Autoshare and the Canada Council for the Arts. This week the Spacing Road Show kicks into high gear with events in Saskatoon, Edmonton, and Calgary. SASKATOON When: Monday, June 20, 7-10pm Where: Persephone Theatre, 100 Spadina Crescent East Cost: $5 (gets you copy of magazine) Facebook: RSVP to our event listing PARTNER: ...

SAINT JOHN - In early 2010, the City launched PlanSJ to develop a new Municipal Plan to guide development over the next 25 years. We've been following it closely from the beginning and now, it’s almost here. A draft Plan is being introduced to the public with an Open House today. It's available here [PDF] for your reading pleasure, all 150+ pages of it. Here's an excerpt: Policies contained in the Municipal Plan will help guide: Capital expenditure and investment decisions by the City; Decisions about where and ...

WHAT: Cycling Infrastructure Ideas from Across the Country WHERE: Kenneth C. Rowe Management Bldg, 6100 University Avenue, Rm 1009 WHEN: May 31st, 2011, 6:30–8:00pm HOW MUCH: Free HALIFAX - Since May 27th, HRM Bike Week has organized Bike Auctions, Safety Classes, Tune-Ups, Bike to the Movies' events and so much more. As part of HRM Bike Week, join cycling infrastructure experts this evening from across the country at Dalhousie University, to discuss innovative bikeway projects. Panelists will share ideas from recent projects and field questions from the public, as well. Visiting panelists, include Norma Moores, IBI Group: Behind the Curb: Innovative Approach to Constructing Cycle Tracks Meghan Whitehead, McCormick Rankin Corporation: Segregated Bicycle Lane Pilot Project - Ottawa, ON John McGill, Hatch Mott MacDonald: Dynamic Cycling Trip Planners

WHAT: Outdoor Concert, Save the Bedford Reef WHEN: Monday, May 30 6:30 - 8:30 pm WHERE: DeWolf  Park,  Bedford HOW MUCH: Free BEDFORD - Alongside the Ecology Action Centre and the Sackville River Association, join Save the Bedford Reef advocates and musicians this evening for a Free Outdoor Concert at DeWolf Park in Bedford, NS.  Tonights' concert will showcase talented local musicians including Singer-Songwriter Dusty Keleher performing his new song "Mile of Ocean" with Amy Lounder and Jeff Harper.  The concert also features Cassie & ...

With lots of neat-o, community urban events taking place this weekend - from Metro transit bus rides discussing sprawl, Mobile Art project unveilings, the final walk with Aimee Brown in Point Pleasant Park to Open Street parties -  I thought I would consolidate the Events Guides, so you can map out your weekend plans in advance. WHAT: Taking development issues on the bus: Ecology Action Centre's 37th Day of Action WHERE: Metro Transit Route 14, meet and jump on at Barrington & Duke, South WHEN: Saturday, May 28, 12:48pm, SHARP!! HOW MUCH: $2.25 HALIFAX REGIONAL MUNICIPALITY (HRM) -  As part of Ecology Action Centre's 40 days of Action to celebrate the organizations 40th year of operation, grab your bus pass and join EAC’s Built Environment Committee for a healthy debate about the past and future of Halifax' city’s growth. This event is all about jumping on a bus and riding through various HRM development types - from the city’s core through the subdivisions to the edges of metro - while having a discussion on growth and development. What do our neighbourhoods say about us? The event encourages dialogue regarding HRM development and the impact it has had on the city's economics, the environment, and the notion of community. The bus tour is organized by the Built Environment Committee at the Ecology Action Centre, but all residents of the city are invited. Special “on the bus” guests include:  Jennifer Watts, City Councillor of HRM district 14; Andrew Murphy, Accountant and developer who worked on the proposed changes to HRMs' regional tax structure; and two more guests that have yet to be announced.

HALIFAX - What happens when the public space of the city intervenes in the private experience of art? Find out when panelists Kim Morgan (Chair) – NSCAD University, Sol Nagler (Chair) - NSCAD University, Martha Radice – Dalhousie University,Nathan Ryan - NSCAD University, Ellen Moffat – University of Saskatchewan, Erin Wunker – Dalhousie University come together to contemplate inteventions of art in public space. Members of the panel present the initial stages of an interdisciplinary SSHRC-funded research/creation project that uses emerging technologies to explore the interstitial space between the private and the public in relation to art. “Art” for us includes visual art, performing arts, and other streams of creative culture such as architecture, design and literature. We define public urban space as those spaces in the city that are accessible to everyone (regardless of ownership), in which strangers interact in many different ways. People’s experience of art is typically private, whether or not the art is in a collective setting. They move through the art gallery in the bubble of their own personal space. They watch films ensconced in the dark of the cinema. Their emotional reactions to art are located in the body, and divulged to just a few companions. However, some members of the panel suggest that the public space of the city can challenge and interfere with the private experience of art. Indeed, they posit that the public space of the city can creatively be made to intervene in the private space of engagement with art.

DARTMOUTH - What do you get when you speak 'Hansel and Gretel' into the iPhone app Dragon Dictation? Well, to the surprise of Adriana Lilley, it wasn't Hansel and Gretel, it was 'Girlface'. Girlface seemingly fits into the concept of Lounders GETting Over It performance walks, where she edits the visual urban environment through digitally projected fragments. Recently, over a cup of tea at Steve-O-Renos, I talked to Brian Lilley, professor of Architecture at Dalhousie Unviersity and a participant in Lounders' walking series; so far, Lounder has initiated two walks in the GETting Over It walking series - Solstice Walk & South North. Lilley initially met Lounder through The Association for Computer-Aided Design in Architecture and Expanded Bodies: Art, Cities and Environment. Lilley appreciates the GETting Over It walking series for their 'augmented experience' - pushing and pulling him out of his regular routines and ways of experiencing the city. He tells me about his adventures in London where he studied at the Architectural Association and worked for architectural firms in both London and Berlin. With worldwide experiences of urban infrastructure and architecture, Lilley enjoys how Lounder provides clever insight into the walks helping participants experience urban geography in a way in which they would have never considered before. Regarding Lounders' themes of the walks, he explains that "there is a guide or intent, but no fixed way of interpretation; the character of the walk depends on how the walk is experienced." Lilley mentions 'states of liminality' and the 'derive', as a way of understanding and experiencing Lounders' walks. He describes the dérive as a city comprised of a series of fragments which are reassembled by the urban protagonist.  The dérive was defined by Guy Dubord, a french marxist and situationist who is well-known in regards to 'psychogeography'. Derive - and Lounders' walks - helps Lilley move beyond routine ways of seeing, thinking and understanding architecture and the urban landscape; and further allow him to consider new alternatives. Liminality on the other hand, is a psychological, neurological, or metaphysical subjective state, conscious or unconscious, of being on the "threshold" of or between two different existential planes.

HALIFAX - Has ecocide caused something you love to become a zombie? Join Ecology Action Centre (EAC) and make a statement about the environment on Friday the 13th for EAC's Zombie Walk for the Environment. The event has been advertised as a messy, costume-heavy parade. WHAT: Zombie Walk for the Environment WHEN: Today - Friday, May 13, 2011, 5:30pm WHERE: Meet at Camp Hill Cemetery on Robie Street HOW MUCH: Free Ecology Action Centre (EAC) has noted that the tentative walking route for today's Zombie Walk will proceed from Camp Hill Cemetery at Robie street through the cemetery and emerge on Summer Street; the Zombies will turn left walking towards Spring Garden Road then turn left on to Spring Garden and will walk down Spring Garden towards Barrington. From Barrington the group will turn left on Grafton, right on Blowers, left on Argyle to the final Zombie resting place - Parade Square.