Raise the Hammer

I appreciate the sentiment, and indeed a successful downtown is important for the whole city.

But it is also true that people from all over the city shop at Limeridge, Meadowlands or the various shops along Upper James, to take just a few examples.

Dundas also attracts a lot of non-Dundas residents to its downtown.

And all of the new movie theatre complexes have been built on the outskirts.

I think it is a good thing if people throughout the city are engaged in building an attractive, dynamic and economically strong downtown.

However, the interest of many suburban councillors in Downtown is very often limited to how easy it is to drive through or how cheap and accessible parking is. And it is well-established that making a downtown easy to drive through quickly and dedicating lots of real estate to cheap parking is really bad for a downtown. And we've seen the effects of this in Hamilton.

Another issue is the complaint that "too much money is being spent on downtown". This has to be weighted against the tax revenue per capita (i.e. serviced area) generated by downtown and the relative importance of downtown to a successful Hamilton. We heard at that same council meeting that the new Stanton development on a very small area of land behind the Baptist church will generate $750K annually in tax revenue ... that's as much as about 200 houses for essentially no infrastructure investment by the city.

If Downtown really is for everyone then it is worth spending a lot more on it than other areas. But I don't really see any evidence that a lot of City money is being spent downtown compared to infrastructure projects in other Wards (particularly the many millions spent on new roads, road widening and road reconstruction). This money is somehow never discussed or examined (e.g. the $75 million spent on the Clappison's interchange, the $20 million on widening the road from Waterdown or the $18 million for the road on the East Mountain). Let alone all the money spent on the very nice recreation facilities in the suburban parts of the city.

I think we need to ask what the goal of some suburban councillors really is when they go against the expressed wishes of the Councillors who actually represent the wards in question.