Yes indeed, our city, Niagara Falls, Ontario, does have a flag! It's very obscure, and no, I don't mean the one bearing a corporate logo (which is it's own kind of bad), we in fact have our own proper city flag. Unfortunately, it is very poorly designed. Here it is below.

It breaks all of the rules of good flag design (Keep it simple, use meaningful symbolism, use 2 or 3 basic colors, no lettering or seals, and be distinctive), is visibly low quality, wonky, and lazy, falling into a city flag trope of "SOB", or "Seal On Bedsheet". While this seems like a non-issue, history shows that a city flag, be it good or bad, can reflect majorly on a community, and effect the sense of unity among citizens, and love for the city.

Here is a flag design I wish to try and replace it with below.

It is based on the Niagara Falls coat of arms, and while I wont claim it to be the best flag design ever, I feel it at the very least surpasses the current flag, and it follows the rules of good flag design listed earlier.

Niagara Falls is a city in need of improvement, we as a community have been facing many problems over the years. It's disheartening, as it is a city I feel has a lot of potential to thrive, and in certain facets we do, but in many others we fall very very flat. In general I have come to see that our community wishes for change, and wishes for steps to be taken to see that change come and our community become what it should. Not only that, but we are one of the most iconic tourist cities in both Canada, and to an extent the world, it is our biggest industry, and while part of our issue may fall with a negligent focus on strictly tourism, what this focus overlooks is that improvement of the city and community will make that industry thrive even further.

How this ties to the flag, is that a sense of community and identity is important to this, and a flag has genuinely been shown to be imperative on this front. The primary example being the city of Chicago, Illinois, which is recognized as having one of, if not the best, city flags of all time. And this flag is a major part of community identity for the city, its flown everywhere, and itself has received much memorabilia as it is something so deeply iconic to the city, and such a strong symbol helps attract visitors, while also helping form a bond among citizens. I'm not trying to say a new flag would attain the exact level of success, but this among other examples shows why a good flag can help boost and motivate a community.

Now is the time to act on this, as in the past decade there has been a growing movement through the world to examine city flags, many of which were infamously terrible, and I think it's time for Niagara Falls to join in, else be left in the dust, and hopefully like many other cities before us, a new flag can help bolster our community for a stronger sense of unity, and for improvement.