"Hamilton's dead. Or is it?" Globe & Mail article

[SABBATICAL!]

Byline: "Its days as Steeltown are finished—but can Hamilton see its future?"
Thoughts on the article?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1264739/

[Hammer Native]

I'd say of all the articles written by an out of town writer, probably the one who most has their finger on the pulse. I'm hard pressed to disagree with much here.

[thistleclub]

Trevor's a Hamiltonian, and a lower-city one at that, which is probably invaluable in terms of the background, context and perspective on the issues facing the city. (Unlike, say, Rosie diManno.) And he's a formidable business writer, possibly the best Report on Business has going. He also has a golden batting average with ROB, which probably helps with pitching slightly "square-peg" features like this -- he seems to gravitate to that sort of material and generally turns up something unexpected and fascinating. A thoroughly enjoyable read that hopefully turns some heads.

[FairHamilton]

I'd like to thank him for validating many of my views and statements on this board and elsewhere.

[SteelTown]

Never heard someone suggest to City Hall that Hamitlon "should be gay-friendly".

From my perspective Hamilton has a long way to go if it did.

[flar]

The article hits a lot of the problems with Hamilton. I'm glad the word "parochialism" made it into the article. That about sums up Hamilton's politics and civic "leaders." Though the deadness of Hamilton is a little overdone. Sure, Hamilton looks terrible in comparison to the thriving metrolpolis next door, but it never suffered to the same degree as comparable cities in the US.

[go_leafs_go02]

Good article...enjoyed reading that..can't say I disagree with anything he says within it.

[flar]

He is mistaken with the 57,365 people driving to Toronto for work. According to StatsCan, 6,925 people live in Hamilton and work in Toronto. 57,000 is the total number of Hamiltonians that work outside Hamilton's official city limits. That includes Burlington and other nearby cities like Brantford, St. Catharines and K-W and also far flung places like Montreal, Kingston and Inuvik.

24,000 Hamiltonians total work in the Toronto CMA, most of those in Oakville, then Mississauga.

165,000 work within the Hamilton CMA. Over 140,000 Hamiltonians work in Hamilton, and over 20,000 work in Burlington. If 83% work within Greater Hamilton, any notion that Hamilton is a bedroom community is utterly ridiculous.

[emge]

In Hamilton, the industry limps along, with no end nor glory in sight, while city politicians cling to the idea of manufacturing like a security blanket. Even Mayor Eisenberger still refers to the city’s steel industry as “a very good asset,” although, to an observer, its economic benefits no longer offset its vast, ugly footprint.

Yeah, that's about it.

[hamtransithistory]

Couple of nitpicks about this paragraph

"Even the province has had trouble in this town. In the late 1970s, the Bill Davis government wanted to give Hamilton a light rail transit system that would link its downtown and waterfront to the airport. The government saw it as a chance to test-market something it wanted to sell worldwide. But Hamilton was sure that if the province wanted to give it something like that, there must be something wrong with it. So it said no to a freebie that would have transformed the city. Needing a place to show off its system, the province wound up selling it to British Columbia for Expo 86. In Vancouver, they called it the SkyTrain."

1) There was a demo version of this line already, its called the Scarborough RT
2) Although it may have eventually been expanded so that it was 'waterfront to the airport', back then it was more 'Downtown to Limeridge'
3) I've seen the final designs, and its good that it wasn't built. It turned out that the RT cars required a wider turning radius than was originally claimed, so had the line been built there would have been trouble with the downtown loop. We probably would have had to rebuild the line twice; once in the mid 80s to deal with the problems when they were originally discovered, and again about now because the original cars would be wearing out and the replacements require even larger curve radii.

But other than this paragraph, I think the article is spot on.

[flar]

Originally Posted by emge

In Hamilton, the industry limps along, with no end nor glory in sight, while city politicians cling to the idea of manufacturing like a security blanket. Even Mayor Eisenberger still refers to the city’s steel industry as “a very good asset,” although, to an observer, its economic benefits no longer offset its vast, ugly footprint.

Yeah, that's about it.

I disagree with that, if you took away Stelco and Dofasco, you take away tens of thousands of good paying jobs. Several thousand people still work directly at those plants, many more work in related construction and contract work, many more work at the dozens of other factories that depend on the steel plants.

It's not just the jobs, it's the municipal taxes that those businesses pay. The city can't afford to lose them, and they do make up a significant part of the economy.

[realcity]

If Dofasco and Stelco were to totally close down that land would be a brownfield for about 100 years. We can't even do anything with the brownfields we have now. Imagine the blight if it had zero activity? At least now people see from the Skyway that it's operating.

[realcity]

Great article. good insight thistleclub.

[emge]

Originally Posted by flar

I disagree with that, if you took away Stelco and Dofasco, you take away tens of thousands of good paying jobs. Several thousand people still work directly at those plants, many more work in related construction and contract work, many more work at the dozens of other factories that depend on the steel plants.

It's not just the jobs, it's the municipal taxes that those businesses pay. The city can't afford to lose them, and they do make up a significant part of the economy.

My selective quoting implied it, but I'm not necessarily saying that the industry should die.... but I do want to see it either improve greatly or die.

What the article said is precisely true: it's limping along with no "end or glory" in sight. Sure, we get some benefit from it, but it's hampering us not only from the greater good those lands may be used for (and I don't think it would take 100 years once the hammer fell) but from a greater problem with how this city sees itself. I like the Pittsburgh example because the city faced a "change or die" ultimatum with steel leaving.

Whoops, we lost those taxes - now what? Whoops, those jobs are gone for good - now what? All those "now what" questions are never asked here, because we've been dying away little by little instead.

We have a "change, or um, well, keep sort of chugging along at a tiny fraction of what we used to be, which is better than taking a risk of things ever improving, I guess, or cutting things out entirely" mentality here.

and still, "to the observer" they're just a big ol' blight.

So if the companies end up doing better and we strategically take advantage of our location and we once again become a city of steel and perhaps put on real strict environmental controls and the right kind of buffer zones between industry and residential with commercial. great...

but if we keep puttering along with a few thousand folks employed and paying some taxes and hold back the entire city... I'm not convinced it's worth the price.

But it is still just one piece of a very big puzzle in this great city.

[bigguy1231]

Excellent article. He hits the nail on the head.

Hopefully, most city councillors will read it. It's a good assessment of the problems we have in this city.

[bigguy1231]

Originally Posted by hamtransithistory

1) There was a demo version of this line already, its called the Scarborough RT
2) Although it may have eventually been expanded so that it was 'waterfront to the airport', back then it was more 'Downtown to Limeridge'

I am not sure, but I if I remember correctly, the rapid transit proposal predated the Scarborough RT by a few years. I sort of remember when that was built and it seems to me that it was after Hamilton turned it down. The main reason for turning it down was financial. The city didn't want to be responsible for the operating costs for what they believed would be a white elephant.

The reason the line ended at Limeridge was because there was nothing beyond that point. It was mostly farmland with a few commercial properties on Upper James. For the most part expansion of the urban area South of Limeridge did not begin until the 80's after Limeridge Mall was built. The only reason I remember that is because in the late 70's I used to drive to Southmount High school, now St Jean de Brebeuf, for grade 13. I used to drive across Stonechurch from Upper James and it was all farms. There were a few small enclaves around Upper James and on the West mountain but it was mainly agricultural land.

[FairHamilton]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repor...rticle1270594/

[FairHamilton]

Question from Lance in Hamilton

I agree. What types of incentives is the city of Hamilton putting out there for businesses to consider Hamilton a worthy place to set up shop?

Answer from Trevor Cole

Hamilton offers $20 million loans for developers willing to build residential buildings downtown. It offers tax breaks for companies willing to pay the costs of reclaiming brownfield land. In certain cases it will waive development charges for businesses willing to locate here. Even Hamilton’s city staff aren’t always aware of all the incentives they offer. In researching this story I was directed to ask Tim McCabe, head of planning and economic development for the details of the programs. Tim McCabe told me “Don’t ask me the details.”

Nuff said!!!

[flar]

I bet that's not what the director of ec dev says in Burlington...

[realcity]

Tim 'drive thru' McCabe