Quote:
Originally Posted by crhayes
As far as I know our economy isn't doing relatively terrible, but the steel mills have taken a big hit. One of our Largest, Stelco, recently shut down until next year (I believe) and 1500 jobs were lost. There have been layoffs in the Health Care industry as well, which is currently our largest (Hamilton Health Sciences being Hamilton's largest employer). HHS is still building massive expansions at three of it's five hospitals though, which is creating a lot of construction jobs.
The city is revitalizing, although it is a slow and painful process. There are a lot of developments that have been proposed/are in the works for 2009. Some of these include: - 4 hotel developments
- McMaster University Innovation Park (Research Facility)
- Major expansions to Henderson/St. Joes/General Hospital
- City Hall renovation
- Lister Block renovation (heritage building)
- Proposed LRT public transportation (to hopefully start by 2013)
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You've captured the redevelopment rub, though. Not to discount the energy that these projects will bring to the table, but these are almost all driven by public investment, and few add to the tax base. I seem to recall that something like that six of the city's Top 10 employers are public-sector; the other four are metals manufacturing. So there's work to be done, need for progressive private employers and bold private investment, which can breed the sort of confidence needed to spark a genuine turnaround, and often faster than public projects.