Raise the Hammer

hey Larry...thanks for the response. I just re-read my post and don't think I jumped down Michelle's throat. I was just stating basically what you just said - we can do more than one thing at a time. Or at least, I wish we could. Yes, things have been going better downtown, but we still seem reluctant to jump in with both feet. Especially in regards to the two-way conversions. They have been a remarkable success and yet the public works staff recently mentioned that they don't see how Main or King could ever go two-way (history books show them 2 way only 5 decades ago) and are even proposing another strange two-way proposal for York Blvd - 2 lanes east, 1 west. I would love to see our port become a huge asset to this city. I wish our business parks would fill up. Again, I must repeat, I am not closed for business. All of us on here want to see Hamilton prosper, including you.
Red Hill is finally done (at least the construction portion). Hopefully now we can get onto building a proper city in a holistic manner. I agree with the need to create wealth. I'm a huge fan of our great philanthropists and successful business-people (again, you're insinuating that somehow I'm anti-capitalistic). I wish we had dozens, hundreds more of them. The facts is, it is tough to generate real wealth in the suburbs. Any wealth they generate is gobbled up by the massive costs to maintain and deliver services in those sprawled out areas. Our best bet is to generate wealth in the city. That's how Portland can afford to spend hundreds of millions each year on light rail and streetcars. Empty lots become 30 storey towers. thousands of new people move into the city. New companies locate there. Industrial parks are filling up. The wealth creation starts in the heart of the city and spreads out across the entire region ideally. If that is somehow anti-business, then I'm really confused. I'd love nothing more than to see Hamilton become a world model of development like Portland, Seattle, Vancouver and many other cities have become. An airport is a small piece of that puzzle. Not the grand-daddy of it.