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Fat City
DCHP-2 (Oct 2012)
n. — slang, Politics
an informal name for the capital city, Ottawa.
Type: 3. Semantic Change — As with other capital regions, envy that is related to a perceived distance from the centre of power by other locations gives rise to derogatory pet names. See Chart 1 for the term relating to Ottawa.
See also COD-2, s.v. "Fat City", ITP Nelson, s.v. "Fat City" in the meaning 'a favourable set of circumstances".
See also COD-2, s.v. "Fat City", ITP Nelson, s.v. "Fat City" in the meaning 'a favourable set of circumstances".
Quotations
1979
And Ottawa is no longer Fat City, if it ever was. Unemployment in the capital is running consistently above the national average (on an unadjusted basis, 8.6 versus 7.9 per cent in November).
1987
Entries poured in from both sides of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers, but by far the most came from Fat City itself, Fat City suburbs, and towns in the Fat City Valley, to which Fat City workers retreat each night.
1996
The Ottawa and Hull areas, for example, have long been considered "Fat City" by outsiders because of a strong workforce of well-paid public servants.
2005
He makes it sound as if Ottawa -- "Fat City" as it's been called -- is too small for all those high-paid bureaucrats [...]
2008
How good is life in the capital? The Ottawa Citizen trumpeted last Friday that "Fat City" was back, with the capital region having increased its "core public administration" workforce by 12,800 jobs [...].
2015
New Brunswick, however, doesn't benefit from some of the resources and manufacturing capabilities of its partners in Confederation, which tend to compensate for Fat City's bloody-mindedness on the subject of balanced budgets and cash.
2017
It's farewell to Fat City: Local income stagnates. If there was any doubt before the latest national census, there certainly isn't now: Ottawa residents are no longer the envy of the rest of the country when it comes to income.
2018
Hydro Ottawa's fat-city dividend makes no sense. The city has hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra-superfree bonus money to spend on green projects, which city council's environment committee will dole out on Tuesday.
References
- ITP Nelson
- COD-2
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