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By A Smith (anonymous) | Posted December 15, 2008 at 22:45:52
UrbanR, I guess my thinking was that property values take into consideration all of the quality of life factors, but if this is not the case, then using a more well rounded set of metrics is fine as well. The reason why I like property values, is because increasing this number creates real value for people. If, for example, property values in Hamilton jumped up to the GTA average, people would see wealth real increases in the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars, not a small amount by any measure.
I do like the disposable income stat and think an even better tool would be median disposable income. This number would tell us how the average person was doing, rather than just a few pro athletes that come to town (if for example the city brought an NHL team to Hamilton).
In regards to politicians not warming up to this system, I think that would be true if their pay package stayed the way it is today. However, if they could earn bonuses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more, I think they might just like this new way of rating their performance.
Rather than treat political positions with the naive belief that it is a "calling" and that money isn't important, I think the residents of Hamilton would be much better off to treat the politicians as advisors. Therefore, if our advisors created real wealth in the course of their job, they would be entitled to a percentage of the city's success. By not rewarding politicians for their efforts, we may feel good about saving a few bucks, but in the long run I think we are only hurting ourselves. You get what you pay for in life, so I think if we want a world class city, we need to pay world class rates to the people who help make it happen. What do you think?
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