Comment 50216

By d.knox (registered) | Posted October 22, 2010 at 23:39:12

I also read Spirit Level and found it interesting, but ultimately unsatisfying. I didn't think the authors took enough time to consider their anomalous findings.

It's a little extreme to consider Hamilton to be an American city, for a variety of reasons: 1. We have sidewalks; 2. Our "inner city" is really close to a beautiful waterfront; 3. Our "inner city" has great grocery stores; 4. Our education funding does not come from restricted geographic regions - directly linking poor neighbourhoods with poor quality education; 5. We have a good public transportation system equivalent to a much larger city. 5. Our city is beautiful.

There are obviously flaws we still need to deal with - mentally ill people really shouldn't be left to fend for themselves for one thing - but we are pretty great.

I was once part of a tour company that brought a busload of tour guide operators to Hamilton from New York State. After they toured the city, and we took them everywhere, including any bad areas you are thinking of, and at the end, they said it was nice, but they wanted us to show them the bad areas. They insisted, while driving down Wellington, Bay North, and all along Barton, that we were sugar-coating the tour.

Finally, half our relatives are American, and when they come to visit, most of them wish they could move to Hamilton - because it's so lovely (except for the winters).

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