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Old Posted Feb 5, 2016, 8:27 PM
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Hamilton’s Future: Positive Growth

Hamilton’s Future: Positive Growth

By Daniel Govedar (Feb 2016)

Posted on February 5, 2016 by OnlineMind

Hamilton as a city has made many advancements and is setting itself up as a modern, healthy, progressive, and advanced community. Here are some of the encouraging and constructive changes coming and ongoing within the city.
  • Shift in the Job Market + Health & Science
    One of the more dramatic trends in Hamilton has been the decline of industrial jobs. This had created a major unbalance among many middle-class families, especially those heavily affected by ongoing disputes (such as the US Steel pensions fiasco.)1 There are however, many positives to be observed. A continuing trend in Hamilton has been an increase in jobs relating to health care, science, and research. While there is still a massive problem in funding for healthcare, (a problem nation wide), undeniably there has still been an increase in the specialty focus within the city. Hamilton’s largest employer is the Hamilton Health Sciences; the city is by far one of the leading areas in Canada for health care and research including massive new facilities for cancer and mental health. There has been an intensive development in research institutions which will propel Hamilton even further as a leader in healthcare and science.
  • Downtown Revitalization
    The downtown core in recent years has gathered a massive injection of funding and progressive city planning. The new MacNab terminal created an efficient place for public transit while also opening a new opportunity in Gore Park for it to act as a more solidified public space rather than simply a transit terminal. Jackson Square, and many surrounding buildings, as well as historic sites, have all gotten massive upgrades and restorations. Coupled with this construction boom has also been a significant increase in Condo development and focusing on bringing new demographics back into the downtown core. While a serious consideration needs to be paid to the consequences of gentrification, this revitalization of the downtown core / refocusing on quality, modernity, and upkeep is a positive development.
  • The Arts Are Flourishing
    Along with the physical construction of the city there has also been a flourishing energy within the arts community. With the growth of massive renowned festivities such as Supercrawl, to the electronic music boom occurring throughout Hamilton’s electronic dance community, and with many new visual galleries and studios popping up throughout the city; a clear renaissance in the arts is occurring. The public is attending many local concerts and productions, as well exhibits such as the James North Art Crawl. The city is collecting artists from across the country and has even seen a significant migration of artists from Toronto to Hamilton.2 This arts boom has been radiated by local music and talent, such as The Arkells, and has lead to a surge in creativity and public interest.
  • Growth of McMaster & Mohawk
    A highlight of Hamilton is the education system. McMaster University and Mohawk College are both elite institutions in Canada. Mohawk College has won for the 5th year in a row the best college in the GTHA. Both schools have grown in size, expanding programs, campuses, and ambitions. McMaster has been revving its engines yet again with many more new facilities and programs planned including a massive new location for the Humanities, as well as a new $120 Million 12 story “Better Living Centre”.3 The two schools amplify the development initiatives in the city both by engaging the present world and actively making it a better place, and also by educating and nursing the minds of future generations.
  • Condo Surge
    A huge change coming to the city skyline will be an influx of Condo developments scattered throughout the city. Many will not feature parking on site; shifting very considerably how Hamiltonians will live within the downtown core. Condo development and focusing on revitalizing the downtown core is a healthy step away from Hamilton’s exhaustively large suburban sprawl. This focus on urban living, public transit, restoration of historic sites, and renovation of iconic public spaces is a positive and encouraging step especially in a downtown core which for many years has felt abandoned / stuck in the past.
  • Light Rail Transit
    Another major upgrade coming to the city if all falls according to plan is the new LRT system. The LRT will run upwards of $1 Billion+ but with it will bring a massive new public transit installment and a restructuring of the entire downtown core. With additional expansions covering a vast region of the city, the LRT is a significant step to unifying the city space for convenient, efficient, and environmentally friendly transportation.
  • Hamilton is Evolving
    Hamilton as a city has consistently in the past decade refused to limit itself in its scope. While serious critiques of the city are warranted, praise and acknowledgment of accomplishments and goals are also clearly deserving. Hamilton as a city has many issues facing its future development and growth; however, many platforms within the city are being raised to truly build a modern, sustainable, and thriving 21st century metropolis. A focus on rebuilding the downtown core, strengthening the educational institutions, funding and advancing health science research, connecting the city with sustainable public transit, encouraging the growth of the arts community, and creating meaningful and iconic living spaces for the city’s citizens are encouraging goals and reasons to be proud of this city.

    The future of Hamilton is bright.

The story with pictures.

http://onlinemind.org/2016/02/05/ham...sitive-growth/
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Old Posted Feb 6, 2016, 12:49 AM
HillStreetBlues HillStreetBlues is offline
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When I read things like "The future of Hamilton is bright" I think about that old joke about Brazil: "It's the country of the future...and always will be."

I don't specifically disagree with any of the points. But I find that in Hamilton more than most places there are a lot of platitudes about how great things are going, without recognition of the serious problems the city has, and therefore effort towards solving them.
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Old Posted Feb 6, 2016, 1:59 AM
thistleclub thistleclub is offline
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Originally Posted by HillStreetBlues View Post
I don't specifically disagree with any of the points. But I find that in Hamilton more than most places there are a lot of platitudes about how great things are going, without recognition of the serious problems the city has, and therefore effort towards solving them.
Three positives, seven massives. Hamilton’s Future? Massively Positive.

Hamilton does have a tendency to celebrate the starting blocks as the finish line without bothering to run the race. And, not to be unduly harsh, but there's a fair bit of that here — it's a fairly stock-standard list of bullets that you could get from pulping economic development talking points, straining out the data and skirting critical analysis. Subtract public investment from the summary and you're more or less left with condos, Jackson Square and the arts sector.

Bright and gung-ho but a little lopsided (and, if you pay any attention to municipal politics, fairly myopic).
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Last edited by thistleclub; Feb 6, 2016 at 2:29 AM.
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Old Posted Feb 6, 2016, 4:23 AM
Beedok Beedok is offline
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Originally Posted by thistleclub View Post
Hamilton does have a tendency to celebrate the starting blocks as the finish line without bothering to run the race.
Hamiltonians also tend to view a minor stumble as a city ruining blunder that proves nothing good can ever happen though. I think there's a mix of a lot of pessimists and a few optimists, with a sever shortage of realists.
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Old Posted Feb 6, 2016, 4:53 AM
thistleclub thistleclub is offline
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Originally Posted by Beedok View Post
Hamiltonians also tend to view a minor stumble as a city ruining blunder that proves nothing good can ever happen though. I think there's a mix of a lot of pessimists and a few optimists, with a sever shortage of realists.
A fair assessment, to a point. I tend to think of myself as belonging to the latter two camps but as a longtime resident of the city it's difficult to escape the undertow sometimes. Consider successive councils' investment/policy around files such as walkability, cycling or transit over the last 20-30 years and it's bound to influence how you approach claims of a "massive injection of… progressive city planning," for example.


Edited to add...

A not-dissimilar "Hamilton has turned the corner" narrative was wheeled out 44 years ago in the painfully folksy introduction to Pardon My Lunch Bucket, which praised the era's downtown building boom, arts community, green space, walkable core and diversifying economy. An extract:

Now you were asking about Hamilton? Well, you see, a few years back this town had what you might call a bad case of inferiority complex. A real bad case. It was always 'Toronto's doing this, Buffalo's doing that and we're doing nothin'.

You know, things like that. Down-in-the-dumps talk. Well, all of a sudden some of the boys downtown and the boys at city hall got talking and decided they were sick and tired of wearing Toronto's hand-me-downs.

There was nothing wrong with the city that a new spirit and a few new buildings wouldn't cure... say a new downtown core... somewhere where the people could go and shop and look around, a place where they could take their friends from out of town with a little pride.

And some new housing to get rid of those old decaying buildings in the north end, an urban renewal project, something that would perk up the people of the area yet would cause very little relocation.

The city already had acres and acres of gardens and parks... things that the citizens knew about but that the casual visitor seldom saw. And they're going to get more. Before you know it, this'll be the finest city for taking your family out for a stroll in the whole of Canada.

Now with this Lloyd Jackson Square project, the tall buildings, the pedestrian malls, separating pedestrians from all the traffic and such, the new stores and expanded old ones, well Hamilton is putting on a new face.

Did you know this city has the same growth rate as Montreal's – 28 per cent every 10 years – one of the highest in the land? And it's got Boris Brott and the Hamilton Philharmonic, and the art gallery and McMaster out in the west end.

Sure we've still got pollution but they're spending $75,000,000 on cleaning it up. Why one of these days, you'll be able to swim out in the old bay.

The old Hamilton, the grimy old town, is disappearing. What you're seeing now is new money coming in, new people from abroad settling and bringing their cultures with them – and getting us interested in them as well.

The people are slowly changing their ideas about the old town. A few years back, they'd admit they were from Hamilton all right, but only if you pressed them. Kind of apologetic-like. But not now. That attitude is changing to one of pride…

People are getting out and taking a second look at their town, rediscovering it if you will, finding places and things they never knew existed. A lot has changed in the last few years and all for the better.



Change one or two of the reference points and you could be reading brand-new City-issue boilerplate.
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Last edited by thistleclub; Feb 7, 2016 at 11:53 PM.
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Old Posted Feb 6, 2016, 1:29 PM
HillStreetBlues HillStreetBlues is offline
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The "Downtown Revitalization" point was the real head-scratcher for me. "Progressive city planning" is not something that generally happens in Hamilton. When there are some examples of it, it's usually a lot less "progressive" than Hamiltonians think- at the best of times, we're decades behind the leading cities, and years behind our neighbours.

The list says "The new MacNab terminal created an efficient place for public transit while also opening a new opportunity in Gore Park for it to act as a more solidified public space rather than simply a transit terminal." Well, I think you could make a real case that the MacNab terminal was not what it could have been, and it seems like LRT (depending on how things are organized) might make it irrelevant. As for Gore Park, maybe the "opportunity" is there, but it hasn't been seized. On the contrary, our council is allowing a significant part of that public space to rot...

I think that, a lot of these types of lists are written by people who don't much get down to MacNab or the Gore. I think that there are a lot of realists in Hamilton, but that realism and experience has led them to temper their expectations- especially of council.

There are far too many optimists, or however they should be characterized- people who think things are going great and that the work is done.
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