Raise the Hammer

We don't have SKY HIGH taxes, we have an weakened tax base due to a couple decades of de-industrialization. This has left us overly reliant on residential taxes. Clark was part of the government that decided to push thru amalgamation, and it's not clear who's saving who in the arrangement.

Do you consider building the LINC and Red Hill, or Aerotropolis to be throwing tax dollars away?

Finally, don't compare us to Detroit. Other than deindustrialization we share little in common. Many parts of the City of Detroit have been abandoned and the city has lost more than half its population since 1950. Hamilton is slow growing, and the Lower City while poorer overall than other parts of the city has not been abandoned and has viable neighbourhoods. We also do not have the deeply entrenched racial divisions that Detroit has ... there is a tendency to overlook the role of race in Detroit's problems, especially the accelerated white flight that followed court-mandated busing schemes to integrate public schools in the City of Detroit in the 1970s. The City of Detroit experienced sharp and continual decline of it's non-residential tax base at the same time as there was a rush to the exits among its middle-class homeowners, without a regional mechanism to prevent suburban "home-rule" from gutting the City's ability to restructure itself. Even the most competent city government would be hard pressed to survive what befell Detroit. The real lesson of Detroit is that for a Metropolitan region to prosper long-term it needs a viable core. What is unique about Detroit since 2008 is that the whole Metro was impacted, not just the City. That wasn't the case for much of the period from 1950 to 2000.

The biggest risk to our future prosperity is failing to make prudent investments in hard and soft infrastructure that leverages value in what's already here.

Comment edited by RobF on 2014-09-20 11:12:36