Raise the Hammer

These types of divisive articles need to stop. We witness enough of this around Council's table. While I respect everyone has an opinion, and some of the points made in this article are valid (such as apartments/condos), we do not have any specific data to support this perception that the actual cost of providing services to the suburban home is 3x that for the downtown or inner city.
We cannot use Halifax numbers to validate this perception and to suggests costs are based on length of roads or pipes to those homes is too simplistic. Those same roads, in many cases, are used to dispatch garbage trucks/snow plows from the suburbs to the downtown. The lands in the suburbs are used for many public works and transit facilities in order to bring services to the downtown. The lands in the suburbs are used for waste water/water treatment facilities from the downtown. The lands in the suburbs are used for Industrial/Business Parks to employ a vast majority of Hamiltonians. The lands outside of downtown are used to provide locally grown food and brought in to the downtown Farmer's Market. I could go on and on, but when we have not been provided with the actual cost of providing services to the downtown, I believe we should stop presuming downtown subsidizes suburbs.
And please stop suggesting we are enjoying deep discounts on city services on the backs of our more established neighbours. One only has to take a look at the number and dollar value of the Capital Projects lists in the downtown Wards to see where the emphasis of the tax money is being directed and how much of the DC's are spent on city-wide projects.
We should be respectful of the give and take between everyone's wants and needs. There's pros and cons to where we choose to live, but at the end of the day, for the most part, I'm of the opinion it balances out for all of us.