Comment 80792

By Fred Street (anonymous) | Posted September 09, 2012 at 10:43:14 in reply to Comment 80788

Hamilton was a heavily industrial 30 years ago. The onset of recession coincided with a four-month strike at Stelco and the 1982 layoff of a third of Stelco's workforce. This might have struck at the confidence of a population whose identity was enmeshed with industry.

But the "subsistence" arguably started earlier, and the "doldrums" extended by another decade.

1950-1970: 104,701 population growth
1970-1990: 10,334 population growth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Population-coh-1816-2006.png

Hamilton's parade of grand civic projects from 1967's Civic Square to the genesis of Copps Coliseum a decade later (it makes a cameo in 1979's Their Town) was intended to restore confidence and momentum.

Even now there is an institutional fetishization of the 1940s and '50s, an era when Hamilton was the second largest city in Ontario. Today, when (even after amalgamation) we may soon become the fourth largest city in Ontario.

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