Hamilton's public profile

[flar]

We all know Hamilton has a perception problem, the city has all kinds of negative associations. We also have the problem of low national profile and non-existent international profile. I wonder if anyone here knows anything about public relations and media and what could realistically be done to improve the Hamilton "brand?"


We have stores like MEC and others shun downtown in favour of suburban locations. The NHL won't touch Hamilton and it's becoming clear they simply don't want to be associated with the city. No major company headquarters ever consider locating in Hamilton. We don't even have hotels. All levels of government seem to ignore the city--it's rare that anything is ever put in Hamilton (CANMET lab being the only thing I can think of). We only have one TV station, CBC doesn't even have a presence here, and the national media rarely reports anything out of Hamilton.

Hamilton exists in a black hole. What can be done?

[raisethehammer]

blow up the rest of the world.

[flar]

I ask because someone posted this on my Hamilton thread over on SSC (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=582580):

Originally Posted by isaidso

Thank you for posting that photo of Mac's new stadium. I remember poking around there when it was being built. Thank you for the information above as well. If you're not from Hamilton originally, then from where? What do you think of my proposal below? Do you think it could work?



Sorry for the late response. I was thinking on the same lines. What if we started exchanging ideas on how best to co-ordinate an effort that may bear fruit. Flar seems to have a good handle on the local preservationist societies and groups in Hamilton, he's obviously doing a fabulous job documenting the city, maybe we could round up a few other like minded people. I bet Taller, Better would be supportive. Who knows who else might come out of the wood work.

You're quite right about the opportunity right in front of us. Media is a powerful tool that can change perceptions and move us to our end goal. Here's what I propose:

We try to find all the contacts we have with print media in the Horseshoe or beyond. Magazines like Walrus, Toronto Magazine, Area, Spacing, The Beaver, MacLeans, Now, tourism rags, etc. We find someone who's good at PR and ask them for advice. We bring on board Hamilton preservationist societies that hold some sway and seem to be on the same page. We then send out a proposal to suitable print media and explain what we want to do and why.

It may be hit and miss, but we may just get a receptive ear at some of these publications. Many might see the merit in the project, see the diamond in the rough that we do, the marketability of doing a big spread on Hamilton, and we'd be off and running.

I'm proposing a full length photo spread of Hamilton with articles pointing out the hidden gem that the city is, and what a gold mine Hamilton is, left in the right hands. We could co-ordinate it with 1 or more publications so that they all come out at the same time. We'd put out a press pack and send a free copy to every Hamilton City Councillor and every mover and shaker in that city with copies of the magazine articles, copies of flar's photo thread, and make a strong business case for preserving Hamilton's architecture.

It has to make monetary sense, or it will fall flat on its face. It has to make monetary sense to the magazines, to politicians, and to developers. If we can get enough people in Hamilton all talking about the same thing at the same time, Hamilton views on this subject might start showing signs of movement.

The message has to come from outsiders. People are usually more flattered ,take more notice, and view attitudes as more credible when they are made from outsiders. In the case, the outsiders are us, Torontonians, and beyond. etc. If Hamiltonians picked up a respected magazine and saw emblazoned on the front: HAMILTON, South Beach in the rough! The next best thing? They'd fall off their bar stool. I'm not necessarily proposing that title, but you get my point. Something thought provoking, because it's really not that big of a stretch. Hamilton just needs investment, some creative smart people, and determination to make the goal realized.

Politicians only care if the electorate care. It has to start there, and it to be stoked with information, education, a business case, and a lot of good advice. This also needs to be a coordinated effort where all parties involved are working in unison.

Well that's all I've got at this point. It would be great if something amazing like this could evolve out of a site like SSC that we all log on to mostly for enjoyment. Obviously, this is a great deal of work and needs to be fleshed out considerably, but you have to start somewhere.
__________________

[go_leafs_go02]

the major drawback is Toronto being so close by. That's the media capital of the world. The 4th largest metropolis in North America, and pretty dan powerful.

The steel mills are a terrible eyesore for the city I think. Imagine Hamilton Harbour dotted with glassy, sexy condo towers and parks and recreation along the southern shore where Stelco & Dofasco currently are. The trickle-down effect of harbour living would honestly be pretty stunning. Hamilton geographically is probably the best place in Ontario, for the land forms, the harbour, lake Ontario, and the escarpment that really loops around the whole city in a way.

I guess we'll see what the upcoming depression will be like. It might be really rough for a while, but who knows what might come out of it if some places go under and redevelopment is created.

watching the sunset set behind this from your balcony on a condo tower where the industry used to be? wow..i'd live there.

[ryan_mcgreal]

Here's an idea for discussion: the rest of the country looks down on Hamilton because our municipal government is chronically dysfunctional.

Hamilton is run by councillors that too often act like a gaggle of small-town bumpkins. It's not just the decisions they make, though they're often painful in themselves: it's the process by which they make decisions.

Is it better to replace City Hall's exterior with concrete, or limestone, or simply to fix the broken marble? Who knows? Not our councillors on the renovation committee, since they didn't even bother to price the different options before making a recommendation.

Do we need to rethink area rating, the unique Hamilton policy by which different parts of the city contribute different tax rates toward public transit? Council voted last year not to ask staff for a report on how it works and what options might exist to reform it. (Though they did acknowledge in a vote this summer that they'll have to do something about it sooner or later.)

Should we raise transit fares? How will raising the fare affect ridership? What other options exist to increase HSR revenues? What does the community think? Council voted late last year to raise fares - for the second time in less than a year - without taking the time to ask any of these questions. It was raise fares or fall short, period.

Now Hamilton has the slowest ridership growth among Canadian cities (barely a percent) in a period of high fuel prices when other cities are increasing their ridership dramatically, and the HSR still has a budget shortfall due to fuel prices. Real per capita HSR funding is still significantly lower than it was in the early 1990s.

How does a city of over half a million people not see the value in a robust, well-funded transit system? Yet council won't even consider raising transit levies or studying whether to fix area rating. We have a bus system that's scarcely better than Durham Region.

Our council is sidetracked in ridiculous debates led by self-important contrarians over whether it's a bad idea to have five-lane one-way expressways running through our downtown neighbourhoods. We bandy about studies that were conducted 60 years ago that have long since been debunked, and ignore the overwhelming empirical evidence that one-way thoroughfares are bad for pedestrians, bad for businesses, bad for safety, bad for children, bad for community development and bad for tax assessment. While other cities fall over themselves to fix the bad thinking of the 1960s and 1970s, we relive it endlessly.

Should we locate 100% of our new employment lands over the next quarter century in prime farmland around the airport? Is that a good long-term investment given energy price volatility? Is it the direction we want to go when we're trying to do something about climate change? Is it a good use of our resources to run services to a new 3,000 acre zone several kilometres outside the urban boundary when we have thousands of already-serviced acres sitting unused and underused in the lower city? What does the province think of our plans?

We can't get straight answers to any of these questions. In fact, we weren't even allowed to imagine a growth strategy that didn't include this massive urban boundary expansion, let alone get some rigorous studies on it. Two and a half years after it was requested, we're still waiting for a staff report on how Richard Gilbert's Peak Oil study will impact air transport. A brownfields study prepared by Hemson Consulting redefined brownfields out of existence to conclude that there aren't any available brownfield lands for employment. Existing industrial sites are being rezoned commercial so they can become big box centres with huge parking lots and very low employment densities.

We have no idea how we're going to pay the capital costs to service the Airport Employment Growth District (AEGD), considering we haven't even serviced the already-existing and much closer Glanbrook Business Park, which is adjacent to the municipal expressway that was going to attract new industrial employers but hasn't.

Oh, and the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MMAH) believes we've vastly overstated the acreage we'll need in the AEGD, though there has been almost no transparency in the discussions between the city and the ministry over this matter.

Most of the new development we've had in the past decade is low density residential and commercial. We're giving up the employment lands we already have for more residential and commercial development, even while we insist that we need huge new tracts of farmland converted to employment uses that we insist we'll need. Through all this, our projected assessment growth for 2008 is zero percent.

We're a dense urban centre, but we run the city as though it was a small town. Hundreds of residents write in to complain about a rushed transit fare increase but council plows ahead; yet the home builders association writes one letter complaining about a proposal to increase development application fees to harmonize with neighbouring municipalities, and the same council refers the matter back to planning for further review.

The kinds of cities that are considered leaders are centres of innovation - dense, urban, exciting, progressive - are those places that attract and retain smart, creative people. They are walkable, with tame streets, wide sidewalks and an attractive public realm. They have excellent transit systems. They have traffic congestion (a sign of vitality). They're vertical and mixed. They have feisty, participatory residents. They are beautiful, not merely functional. They have diverse social and cultural scenes. Their academic institutions are closely involved in helping shape public policy. They don't cater to the builders of suburban houses and strip malls. They don't spend hundreds of millions of dollar building municipal expressways through protected natural preserves.

We're getting almost all the big decisions wrong, and it makes us look like a joke.

[crhayes]

Originally Posted by ryan_mcgreal

Here's an idea for discussion: the rest of the country looks down on Hamilton because our municipal government is chronically dysfunctional.

Hamilton is run by councillors that too often act like a gaggle of small-town bumpkins. It's not just the decisions they make, though they're often painful in themselves: it's the process by which they make decisions.

Is it better to replace City Hall's exterior with concrete, or limestone, or simply to fix the broken marble? Who knows? Not our councillors on the renovation committee.....

Damn good post; I agree 100%. My opinion is that right now Hamilton Health Sciences and McMaster are the only things that Hamilton has going for it.

Is there anything we as the public can do? Like can all of us here on the board band up and start a petition, or our own council and fight City Council? Lol...seriously though, if there is something we can do I would be down. I am just not experienced with this political stuff... I'd like to know your opinion Ryan because you seem to know your sh... excuse the language

After reading everyones posts on these boards (even though sometimes discussions get heated) I think that if we were to form a 'Hamilton Think Tank' (with our plans actually followed through) this city would be amazing.

[BrianE]

McGreal for Mayor!


Seriously, I've lived here 5 years now and even I can see that this city is broken. This City needs to be shaken up from top to bottom.

[markk]

Ryan, if you ever run for office in this city, you'd have my vote.

Your post above should be shared further than this site.

[oldcoote]

Simply put, you need to encourage people to visit.

95% of Torontonians think Hamilton is the armpit of Ontario for two reasons:

1. The view from the Skyway

2. Someone told them it is.

The fact is the vast majority have never even been to Hamilton. I know this because I was one of them. I am a Toronto refugee who discovered Hamilton because a few of my University buddies grew up here. It didn't take long for me and my wife to realize the beauty of the city, but the reaction we got from our Toronto friends was completely over the top.

So how do you solve the problem? Invite friends for a hike along the rail trail or through the RBG. Take them down to the waterfront. Go check out a waterfall. Show them the cost of real estate.

[crhayes]

Originally Posted by markk

Ryan, if you ever run for office in this city, you'd have my vote.

Your post above should be shared further than this site.

Yes, it should be written in gold - on parchment - in size 20 font (and bold) and put on every councilors desk.

They need a way of masking the view from the QEW....I know it is really hard to do because you can see Stelco etc. from Burlington.... but maybe once you cross over the QEW into Hamilton they could have massive trees along the side of the highway or something.

The 403 between the link and the highway 6 north exit (right through Hamilton) is my favourite stretch of highway that I have seen so far - I think it's awesome and it makes Hamilton look beautiful - it will be even nicer once MIP is complete and the hotel is erect.

[flar]

I am reminded of an old concept from 1950s sociology: Cosmopolitan vs. Local

Locals:
-parochial
-preoccupied with local problems to the virtual exclusion of the national or international scene


Cosmopolitans:
-identify and relate to issues, events, and social organizations outside of his local community.



There is even an article from 1963(!) that could be about Hamilton now(!):


Thomas R. Dye (1963) "THE LOCAL-COSMOPOLITAN DIMENSION AND THE
STUDY OF URBAN POLITICS" Social Forces, Vol. 31 No. 3: 239-246.

Abstract:
The local-cosmopolitan dimension refers to the scale of social environment in which the individual sees himself. Locals view themselves primarily as members of the local community, while cosmopolitans are more aware of their relationships to larger social organizations. Locals and cosmopolitans among political leaders and residents of sixteen suburban communities were identified by their consistency of response on a five item local-cosmopolitan scale. Localistic attitudes were found to be inversely related to status. Political leaders at the municipal level appeared to be more localistic in outlook than their constituents. Local-cosmopolitan attitudes were also found to be related to varying opinions in three current metropolitan problem areas, transportation, municipal jointure, and zoning.



A prescient excerpt from that article:

"Analysis revealed that individuals who were unable to perceive their relationship to any larger social systems constituted an important segment of the opposition to government supported mass transit operations. The opposition to mass transit stemiming from the occupational characteristics of lower status residents was in this case reinforced by the greater parochialism of these individuals" (p. 246).

[MsMe]

Originally Posted by markk

Ryan, if you ever run for office in this city, you'd have my vote.

Here is some dirt on our MP's so goes to show you what we have running for us.


30 have been accused of spousal abuse.
9 have been arrested for fraud
14 have been accused of writing bad cheques.
95 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses.
4 have done time for assault.
55 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit.
12 have been arrested on drug related charges.
4 have been arrested for shoplifting.
16 are currently defendants in lawsuits.
62 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year!

Can you guess which organization this is?

It is the 301 MP's in the Canadian Parliament!

The same group that cranks out hundreds of new laws designed to keep The rest of us in line?!

Which one did you vote for?

TAKEN FROM THE OTTAWA CITIZEN

[ryan_mcgreal]

Originally Posted by MsMe

Here is some dirt on our MP's so goes to show you what we have running for us.

I'm almost certain this is a hoax. I've received several versions of it in my inbox over the past few years, and it has been attributed equally to the Canadian Parliament and the American Congress.

Originally Posted by flar

I am reminded of an old concept from 1950s sociology: Cosmopolitan vs. Local

The same general dichotomy turns up in different sociopolitical dimensions: urban vs. suburban/exurban/rural; liberal/progressive vs. conservative; etc. The editors of Seattle weekly The Stranger wrote a manifesto after the 2004 US federal election which they called Urban Archipelago in which they argued from a county-by-county electoral vote map that the Democratic Party is the party of urban America:

Liberals, progressives, and Democrats do not live in a country that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico. We live on a chain of islands. We are citizens of the Urban Archipelago, the United Cities of America.

The essay is surprisingly meanspirited and condescending, and I think it's wrongheaded in wanting to cultivate yet more "identity politics", but it does make some very strong points about the core urban values of density, diversity, creativity, innovation, and tolerance.

[T]he New York skyline is a stirring image of American prosperity and achievement. It symbolizes the motivation and spirit of the American people, the wealth of our nation, the thrum of diverse cultures, and inexhaustible cultural creativity. Cities inspire us; they speak to our hopes and our passions. Small towns diminish us; they speak of lost history and downscaled dreams.

[...]

Cities' freedom to go their own way extends, of course, beyond mere infrastructure. Urban dwellers are cultural libertarians--we don't just tolerate a diversity of lifestyles and attitudes, we embrace it.

[...]

Look around you, urbanite, at the multiplicity of cultures, ethnicities, and tribes that are smashed together in every urban center (yes, even Seattle): We're for that. We're for pluralism of thought, race, and identity. We're for a freedom of religion that includes the freedom from religion--not as some crazy aberration, but as an equally valid approach to life. We are for the right to choose one's own sexual and recreational behavior, to control one's own body and what one puts inside it. We are for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The people who just elected George W. Bush to a second term are frankly against every single idea outlined above.

Unlike the people who flee from cities in search of a life free from disagreement and dark skin, we are for contentiousness, discourse, and the heightened understanding of life that grows from having to accommodate opposing viewpoints.

It also makes the obvious point that cities suffer when they're governed by people with exurban/rural values, as is the the case with the over-representation of rural areas on Hamilton's City Council. Each urban councillor represents more than twice as many constituents as each rural councillor, and since councillors generally vote for their own parochial ward interests, that means a small exurban/rural population can effectively overthrow the will of the urban majority. That's a big part of the problem right there.

[flar]

Oh yeah, where I was going with my post above...

We need new blood, we need the talented and influential people who come to the area to live in Hamilton instead of Burlington. We need more people with a more worldly perspective.

Eisenberger lies much more to the cosmopolitan end of the scale than people like DiIanni or Ferguson (textbook locals) but we need more.

[MsMe]

Originally Posted by flar

Oh yeah, where I was going with my post above...

We need new blood, we need the talented and influential people who come to the area to live in Hamilton instead of Burlington. We need more people with a more worldly perspective.

Eisenberger lies much more to the cosmopolitan end of the scale than people like DiIanni or Ferguson (textbook locals) but we need more.

I agree 100%.

[flar]

Has anyone seen the Hamilton TV commercial?

My brother in Ottawa saw a Hamilton TV commercial. He said the voice over and music were amateurish but the visuals made Hamilton look pretty good.

[Jon Dalton]

I'm inherently a very cynical person so bearing that in mind:

The profile of a city is most related to its significance on the national / world level in terms of economic activity, which has long since tanked with the industry it was based on. Manufacturing is over, so lets forget about it. We need higher tech, smaller scale manufacturing firms which will be an integral part of our economy and provide employment to people working in those sectors (people who have to commute right now). North American cities that have turned around are the ones that have managed to shake their industrial roots, rather than cling to them.

Hamilton is barking up the wrong tree in trying to get attention despite the positive press we keep seeing. We need to get over cheap real estate - it isn't neccessarily an advantage. Forget the bedroom economy. "Cheap and close to Toronto" attracts people yes, but does nothing good for our image.

Most importantly, the problem with our image is that people by and large don't care about it. People conduct their lives on a metropolitan scale rather than a local scale and the city one happens to live in means alot less than it used to. What is there to be proud about when you live on the east mountain, work in Oakville, shop in Toronto, go to church in Ancaster, and on the whole spend more time outside of your city and neighbourhood than within it? It doesn't even matter how the city is percieved on a national scale if you don't count on it for work, entertainment or social interaction.

You don't need a reason to live in Hamilton. You can live here because you're born here, because it's cheap, you got accepted at school here, your boyfriend or girlfriend lives here, or in the unlikely case you landed a job here. Toronto, like any high profile city, tends to price out the apathetic.

[Jon Dalton]

Originally Posted by flar

What can be done?

Oh, wait, we're looking for solutions. Of course.

Anything that is relevant not only to Hamilton but to the world around it. That used to be our industry the technological innovations that were made here. Like you said, major corporations or sports teams won't locate here, but maybe one could start here?

[ryan_mcgreal]

Originally Posted by Jon Dalton

major corporations or sports teams won't locate here, but maybe one could start here?

If Hamilton is a successful city, it will attract a sports team, not the other way around. Toronto, for example, is talking about getting a second hockey team. That has nothing to do with "fairness" and everything to do with the fact that the Toronto economy is arguably big and dynamic enough to support two teams.

I think Hamilton needs to play to its strengths: a dense downtown; lots of available industrial/urban land; good intra- and inter-regional transportation access (via the port, rail connections and highways); two post-secondary institutions; a scrappy creative arts community; and a large population that currently works elsewhere.

We also need to chase future performance, not copy past performers. That means looking down the road at what the larger economic framework will look like. It looks very much as though energy markets from here on out will be characterized by extreme volatility trending toward ever-higher prices.

That sounds like a big problem, but successful innovators turn crisis into opportunity. I think we have a guide for revitalization and growth in Richard Gilbert's report Hamilton: The Electric City, in which he argues that Hamilton should make energy conservation and production it's economic Plan A.

Remember: about 90% of the buildings we will occupy in 20 years already exist. We will need to become experts in making those buildings a lot more energy-efficient, and that means a pretty intensely labour-intensive retrofit effort.

It provides economic opportunities right up and down the line: pure research, applied research, market innovation, and lots of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled work to install and retrofit energy systems. Since other cities will need what we're selling, that also means expanded opportunities for manufacturing and transporting energy systems, plus a net influx of income into the city. It also spurs demand for both industrial and office space, which will help to repopulate our under-used lower city.

We will be very well-positioned for new regional, national and international global warming frameworks, which are coming sooner or later; not to mention well-positioned in the case of a provincial or national carbon tax, which I also believe is inevitable sooner or later. We would also, naturally, be more insulated from energy price volatility.

As far as I know, no other North American city is really delving into this market: it's just sporadic businesses here and there, with most of the action coming from Europe. If Hamilton starts now and builds on the foundation of the city's existing planning framework - Vision 2020, GRIDS, The Electric City, Downtown Master Plan, McMaster Innovation Park, etc. - we could quickly establish ourselves as national and even continental leaders.

That, in turn, will attract businesses, entrepreneurs, inventors and investors to build the critical mass that's required to establish a self-reinforcing, growing industry. That will lead to new municipal tax assessments, more employment opportunities, and a more vibrant city, which in turn will attract still more creative people.

There's one more facet. Hamilton, like most North American cities, is facing a demographic one-two punch: aging Boomers are giving up their suburban houses and moving back downtown to take advantage of walkable neighbourhoods, nearby amenities and quick access to medical facilities; and at the same time, young university-educated people are abandoning the suburban dream and looking to move into cities.

Those two groups represent the richest and most creative sectors of our population, respectively. If Hamilton can accommodate them with a dense, vibrant, growing downtown, we can attain both. If we do nothing, those two demographics will find accommodations elsewhere, taking their money and their enthusiasm with them.

[crhayes]

Does anyone know what kind of incentives the city has for attracting new businesses? I am aware of the grant programs for renovating buildings in the downtown BIA...but what else do we have in place?

Does the city give tax breaks to businesses here? It seems the city REALLY has to give incentives for businesses to locate their head offices here.