Raise the Hammer

Michelle, I feel (and have felt!) your pain :)

As you know (I used to be Michelle's next door neighbour) I moved back to TO about 4 years ago. We were fortunate that we were able to scrape together the $ to do so.

As expected, there are many things that I miss about Hamilton, some of which you mentioned. The proximity to trails, waterfalls and countryside is a huge loss. As is the earthiness of the people. I've never known a town so unpretentious.

We also miss out house - a beautiful historic detached 4 bedroom with a turret. We now live in a tiny row house with barely 3 bedrooms and no garden.

But I don't miss the sadness and frustration I felt looking at the downtown and - here's that word again - the potential that just never seemed to be unleashed. Toronto and other cities would kill for a Gore Park like downtown, and yet we treat it like a roundabout on a motorway. I imagined, when I moved in, that the town council would pedestrianize the whole area, put in LRT, and knit together the mountain, downtown and lakeshore area, which would kickstart the downtown rejuvination. I also imagined improved railway service to TO, and the possibility of some high end jobs becoming available locally. But, as we have seen there is no leadership and no vision. It's sad.

Overall I'm releived to now live in a town that is, quite simply, a lot easier to live in. In Hamilton what bogged me down the most was the shear difficulty of everyday life. Commuting to work (in Toronto - I lost my office in Hamilton shortly after I moved), using the local transit, having to drive everywhere, the lack of things to do, the lack of community and neighbourhood planning in our Delta neighbourhood. The lack of...progress! All of these things weighed me and my family down every day. In the end we felt that was little prospect of a fast turnaround a fact that, sadly, appears to be showing itself to be true.

There are still some affordable pockets in Toronto that are not riddled with gangs. Although Toronto itself has made little progress since we've moved back here it does have enough legacy infrastructure to make it an easier place to live. And that's all we can really ask.

Say Hi to Steve and the family.

Cheers!

Ben