Raise the Hammer

Fred, Ryan

thank you for the clarification. I would have liked to see the "I am an urbanist through and through" premise clearly stated at the beginning; it would have eliminated a lot of ambiguity.There's lots to work with here but, in the end, the sides to this debate are pretty obviously politics-driven. Language gives it away.

The language of your reply, Ryan,—and it's the rhetoric of discussion I'm interested in here— is still accusatory and cynical,your position being predicated on some obviously anti-capital talk about "personal interest", "blocked monopolies", "phantom studies", "threats", while the WH side positively glows in "feasible, accessible, well-connected" possibilities. Nothing is that clear-cut, and if you cite study after study, report after report to support your claim, it's because you've already interpreted things in accordance with your own urbanist viewpoint & that of your many supporters at "Raise The Hammer".

Isn't it clear that descriptions that subtly demonize dissenting viewpoints (and the practice of arbitrarily ranking comments on your blog) are open to all sorts of inner-contradictions? Such as the inconsistencies, for example, among the many WH documents themselves, and the Mayor's own erstwhile anti-WH stance. And the duplication of numbers in the EM staff reports. And the recent backtracking of former avid pro-WH councilors. And, even more recently, how do you reconcile the "open frameworks" model, or the wider claim that the WH site has already met with the unanimous approval of Hamiltonians, developers & investors, with the reality (that a recent Hamilton Chamber of Commerce report has recently underscored)of the perception of our city as hostile to even small business?

Again, I'm not taking sides; in fact, I recognize the great opportunities to downtown revitalization that a WH stadium (or any proposed site) will create nor am I averse, in principle, to the "net publics good" criterion for spending that Ryan's made.But I submit that Ryan's refusal to talk politics and enter into the debate the possibility of real 'divisiveness' underlies a tendency to see the WH supports as a single identifiable totality ('bloc') & the rest as suspiciously devious and opportunistic.

I've been accused of being condescending but it's the expertise of bloggers (purveyors of information), planners & enlightened citizens (such as Ryan has listed)who've talked in this debate as though consensus is the only way to go.