Raise the Hammer

I think this is a key point, and Maple Leaf's investments in the city are a perfect illustration of it. There are certain types of industries that are just not compatible with the existing ones in the north end. If Hamilton is going to develop a major cluster of food-processing businesses, it will not happen north of the CN tracks between Wellington and the RHVP without some other large changes in the industrial environment there.

However, the city does need to do more to promote and make better economic use of its older brownfields. I'm realistic that for massive plants like those of ML, no matter what sector they're in, it would have been a challenge to find a large enough parcel of land in the Burlington St. corridor. But some creative thinking about making better use of the space that is available is required.

For example, I suspect there are substantial tracts being held by companies like AM-Dofasco and particularly US Steel Canada which may be underused today and are simply being kept as surplus. Imagine how much land was dedicated to parking lots when there were 30,000 people employed by those two companies - is that land being used today in an economically efficient manner? Would the city benefit if some of it could be sold and used for other purposes? Does the city's land-use inventory even account for it, or just assume that the parent company owns it so it's not available for redevelopment?

Remediation is a major hurdle, but is it possible that a lighter degree of improvement could make the north-end land usable for certain types of industries? For all the talk about building logistics-related business around the airport (a proposal with which I personally agree), is there similar potential for more business that is reliant on water-borne transport?

Small steps have been taken but if the city truly wants to revive its central wards, it needs to expend as much energy on repurposing employment land in that part of town as it has been putting into business parks on the periphery.