Comment 69326

By mystoneycreek (registered) - website | Posted September 09, 2011 at 20:14:42

I'm still processing this essay (and the apparent monumental philosophical shift you've undergone), so for now, just a couple of points.

The real issue is that Hamilton was amalgamated in the wrong manner and for the wrong reasons.

Yes...and yes.

But I think that for the most part, you've missed the heart of the issue.

And by 'heart' I don't mean the core, I mean its very emotionality.

I wonder if this is the result of you being an 'Old City of Hamilton' dweller. Maybe being one means you may not have an easy path to empathy or understanding the basic (and not caterwauling, not declaiming, none of that; it's a much more benign, fundamental reaction) that those who have been forced into this marriage don't express their views in terms of taxes or any other salient aspects you might present.

It's simply the fact that Hamilton is Hamilton and it isn't Stoney Creek, isn't Dundas, isn't Ancaster, isn't Flamborough, isn't Glanbrook...and they're not Hamilton.

It's interesting; you want drivers to see things your way in terms of LRT etc, and sometimes I can see you figuratively tearing your hair out when you meet the same old resistance: "Why can't you guys just accept this truth?!?" Well, it's the same with this. "Why can't you guys just accept this truth about none of these towns and cities ever having wanted to be part of Hamilton...and no 'Win this one for the Gipper!' exhortations are going to change that?"

(Admittedly, what will change the minds of residents of non-Old City of Hamilton is attrition. You know, like Chinese water torture. Eventually we'll have been worn down and the mission will have been accomplished. But it's not going to happen because of the saliency of an essay.)

Even never having read the book you're referencing, I'm wondering if there's conflation going on between those situations where it's suburbia vs urbia...which really isn't the case in The New Amalgamated City of Hamilton.

(Oh, and I agree with the idea of re-doing the wards. Fully and completely.)

Comment edited by mystoneycreek on 2011-09-09 20:15:35

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