On Street Level: Random Thoughts on our Urban World

Sorry for the long delay between blog posts.  I don’t like to go into personal details on the blog, however as of three weeks, I finally tied the knot with my long time girlfriend and couldn’t be happier.  So that might explain the lack of posts these past couple of months.

As a Toronto resident, you often hear Hamilton, Ontario (just 50 minutes away by car) as being referred to as the armpit of Ontario (which plays on the geography of the city on the south western edge of Lake Ontario as well as its seedy reputation).  Yet, there is often been a slight bit of optimism that the city could eventually remove itself from its image as primarily a steel manufacturing center and become a much more diverse and prosperous city.  The Globe and Mail recently posted a great article on the decline and possible resurrection of Hamilton.  The article covers a lot of ground from the start of the decline of the  city in as early as the 60′s to the recent losing attempt to lure an NHL hockey team from Phoenix.

If there’s one region of Hamilton that gets the most co-ordinated lip service from its politicians, it’s the downtown, which has been Hamilton’s bête noire going back to the 1960s, when the city went to work demolishing the best part of the core, ripping out hundreds of homes and handsome buildings, including the grand old city hall, and then taking more than a decade to install an arena, some nondescript glass boxes and a bleak, low-ceilinged shopping mall.

Having visited downtown Hamilton last year, I can confirm that the downtown feels just as empty as it has for the last decade.  Yet, the article later on offers hope in the form of several new downtown condo developments.  While this does seems to have a become a common answer to revitalizing many mid-sized cities downtowns (with not always positive results), Hamilton does have a couple of things in favour of it.  First is the fact that a downtown condo could be bought for a much lower price tag than an equivalent one up in Toronto.  Which is the second benefit to living in Hamilton: the proximity to Toronto.  Thirdly, Hamilton does offers some decent cultural events in the center: the third largest art gallery in Ontario, the many events at Copps Colliseum (the stadium that was to play host of the possible NHL team) and several solid restaurants.  Combine that with Hamilton’s not too shabby geography and there is certainly room for a possible resurgence of the downtown core at least.