Quote:
Originally Posted by craftbeerdad
In regards to having jobs for well educated university and college students locally versus emigrating to Toronto, it seemed like some positive developments prior to the pandemic were underway. However I've always been surprised about the lack of draw and execution by the economic development board of Hamilton. Why they haven't done a better job of attracting large companies to set up shop when you have McMaster and Mohawk plus satellite universities not far away that could draw students here (Waterloo, Guelph, Western, Laurier, etc) is surprising.
McMaster graduates students in high pay sectors like health care, law, engineering and Mohawk similarly in other complimentary areas of the above. Hamilton has a great base of students that could fulfill demand but currently there's no supply, so that's rather unfortunate for the city and those students.
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Yeah, this seems to be the same story for everything in this city. The amount of untapped potential is so large its honestly embarrassing at this point, and I say that after closely watching for economic development here on SSP and other places as well. I used to be hopeful, and EcDev is undoubtedly doing their best to try and support business here, but no one can convince me we haven't done a shit job of it for (at least) half a century. I've always seen Hamilton as a true rustbelt city, and the only reason we haven't fallen to the same fate as other similar-sized cities (Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, Windsor, etc) is because of our proximity to the absolute BOOMTOWN that is Toronto. I think a lot of people have an illusion that this lifeline that keeps our city at ~2% pop. growth year is actually Hamilton doing "pretty well for itself". Not to say we don't have things going on here, but I think it's undeniable that without Toronto or the GTA in general Hamilton would be thoroughly screwed, and the faults of our municipal government would actually show.
The only reason most of the projects under construction or proposed even exist is to draw in people from Toronto. And our excellent city government has decided that we need more red tape than a capital City. If this all sounds really dramatic and excessive, It's because this is something I've personally become fed up with watching and just had to come to terms with. Hamilton is its own city with its own culture and the amenities of a city don't get me wrong- but to think that we can do without Toronto is a lie, and we don't need to look very far to see it.
What does this have to do with anything? Well perhaps if EcDev and the city at large (probably the general city council's fault moreso than EcDev if anything) capitalized on the boundless opportunities we have as a city, we would see
at least five major corporations move head office from Toronto to Hamilton. urban and intra-urban Transit, education, educated workers, and so much more. I don't think people realize how much untapped potential there really is in this region. I genuinely ask people to go to the Toronto/Mississauga forums and realize the number of skyscrapers being built in SUBURBS of Toronto, most of which have no merit to do so except being satellites. Essentially what Im saying is, without Toronto we would be pretty close to where Buffalo or Cleveland is (which isn't terrible, but not as good as we are now). However, any self-respecting city within an hour of Toronto should probably look a lot better than we do. This is all notwithstanding the sheer number of empty lots in our city which could sustain an entirely new central business district without directly destroying any existing buildings at all. As proud as I am of Hamilton and where we are headed, Hamiltonians should not stand for the lack of business our city has attracted and by extension the quality of life a lot of Hamiltonians are missing out on.
Oh, and lets not forget that the province hardly steps in to help, like with this LRT purgatory were currently in
