Comment 42258

By jason (registered) | Posted June 21, 2010 at 17:21:50

FWIW, Portland is made up single family homes to an even higher degree than Hamilton. Other than recent condo development downtown most of their city was single homes and townhomes.

Just re-quoting this to clarify that I was speaking about entire cities, not downtowns. Hamilton's downtown is the regional centre for our region (job stats, cultural venues, civic venues, transit and density will back this up) just like downtown Portland is for them. Sure, downtown Portland looks bigger and better than ours, but it really wasn't for many decades. Go look up videos from the 50's - 70's and you'll see Hamilton in the 80's- today: one way freeways, narrow sidewalks, boarded up stores, little vibrancy etc..... their entire region has made LRT and mass transit/cycling work, not just the downtown core.
Yes, their region doesn't include a large city like Toronto 40 minutes away, but for all the possible negatives our proximity to Toronto can produce, our proximity can produce just as many positives. What we do with the opportunity is what makes our fate. So far, we've done very little except try to copy Ajax and Mississuaga.

This was near the Byward Market. There wasn't a lot of people when I took this photo, but every other day I passed this area it was packed with people talking, eating, drinking, laughing. Seems this "pedestrian friendly downtown" idea isn't just a Copenhagen thing. http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-s...

Just think of how many transport trucks could fit there if they would just get their priorities straight.

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