[flar]

I actually don't think there's a large demand for condos in Hamilton.

This city has a long history of families aspiring to single family homes as a marker of status. Class is spatially distributed in housing in every city, but class differences are particularly marked in Hamilton (for a Canadian city). If you look at the lower city you can see that rowhouses and Toronto style semi-detached quickly went out of style for the working class, replaced with the endless rows of identical 2.5 storey detached houses. The mid 19th century rowhouses became slums early on. The type and location of a house came to differentiate tradesmen and better paid workers from unskilled and immigrant labourers. Rowhouses were considered overcrowed and unsanitary and are mostly gone now. Later, new subdivisions on the mountain and in the far east end (like Rosedale) were marketed towards the more well off blue collar families.

On my recent tour of suburbia, it was obvious that new subdivisions continue to be marketed toward "middle class" families, these mostly come from a blue collar background in Hamilton. They sell lifestyle in exactly the same way as Toronto condos sell a lifestyle, but the impulse in Hamilton remains geared toward home ownership, even for the younger generation. Some young people and some early retirees will choose condo living in Hamilton, but the impulse toward home ownership is deeply ingrained and it seems the majority will choose home ownership.

Home ownership outside the industrial city as a local marker of status will be ingrained in native Hamiltonians with blue collar backgrounds for some time. A market for the "hip, urban condo lifestyle" depends on newcomers to Hamilton, and that depends on successful transition to a postindustrial economy and a younger and more highly educated workforce. Even with a successful postindustrial transition, condo demand will be mitigated somewhat in the short term by the continued availability of affordable houses, both new and old.