Raise the Hammer

Agree with your comments. My experience is that RTH is concerned about quality of content more than policing a particular editorial line. Impressions to the contrary are about who contributes ...

The problem the "RTD" seems to mock, however, is worth a little bit more comment.

In my "professional" life i do research and write about suburbs/suburbanization. For all that i might contribute by writing about suburban matters in Hamilton, I've only lived in Wards 1&2 in my four years as a Hamiltonian. Perhaps more importantly, my work isn't about Hamilton empirically. From experience if i did comment on our suburbs or suburban issues based on my expertise, secondary sources, and firsthand knowledge of them I'm certain to be immediately attacked as one of those downtown "elites" talking about "the suburbs".

You really can't win to be frank, and i'm someone who's spent more time living in suburban places (mostly in Vancouver) than urban ones (in Toronto and Hamilton). The puzzling part of "RTD" is that it never addresses why members of our Council from suburban wards care so much about relatively inexpensive and minor projects in the "Core 4" wards (especially in 1&2). As has been noted, it's something of the absurd that a 2km bus-lane in Wards 1 and 2 that costs a couple hundred thousand $ of Metrolinx funds is debated to death at GIC, while Sam Merulla tells us that the "core 4" have largely deferred to their suburban colleagues on decisions in the suburban wards.

Millions spent on suburban infrastructure rolls by without a peep, but a bus-lane on King or cycle-track on Cannon gets sensationalized coverage in Spectator. Perhaps we should start to take a greater interest in suburban matters ... there's a lot of consequential things happening out there. But then we'd be told to mind our own business. You're from downtown, don't come out here and tell us what to do.

Comment edited by RobF on 2015-01-31 12:53:04