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The central feature in Carp, and the thing that gives the village real purpose, is its historic fairgrounds. The village is known for its annual fair and its Saturday morning farmers’ market, but much more happens on the fairgrounds. Throughout the summer, there are car bingos, which attract hundreds of people to sit around, socialize and engage in some low-impact gambling. Recently, there was a major quarter-horse show. Where else in Ottawa can you walk five minutes from your house and see a horse show?

That walkable lifestyle that urban planners always enthuse about is a reality in Carp. Paths link the residential part of Carp to its small downtown core. For most, the library, the bank, the drug store, the liquor store and the hardware store are an easy 15-minute walk.

There are a small number of good restaurants, most notably Alice’s Village Café, which seems to be the first thing people cite when they hear one has moved to Carp. It’s great to be able to walk out for a meal or a beer without having to live downtown or in one of Ottawa’s pricey older neighbourhoods.

Carp is old-fashioned, in a good kind of way. Children cruise around on their bikes or go to the parks without having parents hovering worriedly nearby. It’s clear that people feel safe.

Carp became what it is today by some combination of good luck, good planning and strong volunteer engagement. It lacks the vast tracts of open land that attract the kind of developers who want to put up street after street of identical homes. When the city decided to extend water and sewer services to the village in 1994, the plan was for slow growth of 10 to 20 houses a year. Carp has about 560 homes now, and the limit for its services is 750. No housing boom is in the offing.