Comment 69141

By Undustrial (registered) - website | Posted September 07, 2011 at 00:40:00

First of all, I can think of many reasons why those in academia might be hostile to a more commercially-focused university. The purpose of universities and academia is knowledge, not employee-training and product development for the private sector. When economically attractive areas get this kind of attentions, others inevitably lose out, and that generates a lot of conflicts.

As far as "opportunity" and "innovation" go, Hamilton really isn't a city with any existing industry in fields like smartphone development. Just like everyone else, though, we're becoming focused on a few high-paying white collar jobs as saviours of our civic economy, but I have to wonder how many cities, so far, have managed to actually succeed at becoming 'the next silicon valley'? In general, Richard-Floridistic arguments tent to be fairly narrow and superficial (ie: economic development rates in terms of how many indie-rock shows an area has...), as well as unbelievably elitist.

What does Hamilton have to offer a "knowledge economy"? We can actually make things. We can have designs machined out of high-quality steel by the end of the day and delivered to one's doorstep. We have a large population of people trained to do this. Why not take advantage of that? Everyone loves the notion of the "Silicon Valley Startup" breaking way from the big bad (and hopelessly ineffective) corporation and forging their own innovative path. Why is this sort of thing so rarely talked about with blue collar work?

"Today, the notion of progress in a single line without goal or limit seems perhaps the most parochial notion of a very parochial century." — Lewis Mumford

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