Posted Jul 19, 2009, 3:01 PM
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Join Date: Jul 2009
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Creative Future for Downtown Hamilton?
I'd be interested to hear opinions on this little article on the future of downtown Hamilton as a potential capital of creative industry: http://social.aking.ca/post/140984791
Missing any major components? Way off mark? Counter-arguments? Help me hone this thing! (I'm likely publishing it on a larger blog once I feel it's ready.)
You can comment on that page using Disqus if you like, as well as here.
Quote:
It just occured to me that Hamilton now hosts home ridings for both the new Ontario PC leader, Tim Hudak, and Ontario NDP party leader, Andrea Horwath. Pure coincidence, but a fitting one for the perennial “second fiddle” of Ontario’s cities. (Toronto, of course, has the Liberal premier’s seat.)
From all signs, Hamilton’s municipal government has done their part to reinforce a Toronto-oriented inferiority complex. They pine to be like the great Toronto, shrugging off their city’s own unique potential. It sometimes seems that if it were possible to erase Hamilton’s industrial, nation-building past by decree, city hall would have passed that bylaw years ago. Which is sad — Hamilton’s impressive history should be celebrated, rescued, and renovated.
But this little piece is about Hamilton’s future, not its past.
I believe Hamilton will become a creative industry capital in Ontario. Some find it counter-intuitive that a city more for known for smelting and coal dust than ideas and art would make this graduation, but it makes sense to me. Let me know if you think the same. Here are 3 big factors I see playing a role:
1. Low expenses + urban amenities. Artists, entrepreneurs and pioneering creatives are generally on small budgets that don’t go too far in downtown Toronto, but these folk don’t generally want to be in a small city or suburb. In Hamilton, new creative ventures can affordably get off the ground, and what’s more, they can easily own their spaces, and resist being forced out by the tides of gentrification that have forced them out of areas like Toronto’s Queen West, for instance. The building stock in north Hamilton is incredible. Lofts, houses, storefronts, industrial studios — all at a fraction of Toronto’s prices, but with the urban lifestyle amenities missing in smaller Ontario cities.
2. Mobility + accessibility. Metrolinx recently announced impressive upcoming GO Transit train service upgrades at their 2 beautiful downtown train stations — the art-deco Hunter Station and neo-classical LIUNA (CNR) station. As well, plans for separate rapid transit lines to augment the Hamilton Street Railway service, Hamilton’s own rapidly growing international airport, proximity to Toronto and the US border, and recently reactivated international shipping into Hamilton Harbour will all make Hamilton even more attractive to creative entrepreneurs and globally-oriented ventures, in particular.
3. Existing creative community catalysts. If you’d like to sample some of the activity, read some issues of H Magazine, or better yet, head to James North, a gallery-strewn stretch between the two downtown train stations, for one of their “Arts Crawls” (2nd Friday of each month) where parties drift along the street from space to space, socializing, seeing new art, listening to experimental musicians at the Anglican cathedral, appreciating architecture, and so on. McMaster University is pushing key tech innovation programs through their “Innovation Park” (built on former brownfields). As well, organizations like Imperial Cotton Centre are transforming old industrial buildings into creative industries centres, akin to Toronto’s Centre for Social Innovation.
What do you think? Will Hamilton become a new capital for arts and creative industries?
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