Raise the Hammer

I meant Birmingham as a good comparison in the sense that if Birmingham (with its even more extensive auto-centric infrastructure and even more intensive industry-in-decline) can manage to reconfigure itself, Hamilton should be able to as well.

Similarly, if NYC or Paris or London with their huge traffic demand can manage to take space away from cars and give them to people, so can Hamilton.

Birmingham is bigger than Hamilton, but the overall picture shows the comparison is not irrelevant. Birmingham has a population of 1.1 million over an urban area of about 600 km^2 and is part of an even bigger West Midlands conurbation of 3.7 million. Hamilton has a city population of 520,000 in an urban area of 228 km^2 (giving it a much higher urban population density than Birmingham). And Hamilton is in a metro area with a population of 720,000 and an agglomeration of about 7 million.

I haven't lived in Birmingham, but I did live in the UK for over four years and I have cousins in Lutterworth (not far away) so I do have an idea of Birmingham's reputation. Maybe it's changing, but until recently everyone hated Birmingham and used it as an example of the "worst city in Britain". The English even consider the Birmingham 'brummie" accent the ugliest in the country (I think its quite attractive)! Again, this shows that you don't need to be a tourist destination to decide to start valuing your city.

Many of the arguments against pedestrian and people friendly streets in Hamilton are of the sort "traffic has to move" and "we don't have the space", or simply "but this is Hamilton".

My main point was to encourage people to read the Guardian article ... and start talking about the ideas they describe. And I just do not want to hear any more of "but this is Hamilton ... we can't learn anything from anywhere else because we are just so special".

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2015-05-04 11:38:20