Comment 26836

By schmadrian (registered) | Posted October 04, 2008 at 09:11:25

For the sake of expediency, not out of some degree of defensiveness, I'll lay out my cards: I'm a left-leaning liberal. I'm pro-choice, anti-capital punishment. I believe in a free-market, capitalist system...with restraints and limitations. (Interesting how there's a dearth of real examination going on in the US at the mainstream media level as to the real causes of this 'crisis'. Yes, we've been given an overview. But nobody wants to take a look at what motivates people to create loopholes and shortcuts and such stuff in the first place. But I guess that would be too painful an examination, and let's face it, it goes to the heart of the American value system. I bring this up because there's always been a contrast between the US and the Canadian approach to business and to Life; ours has an entirely different core, one that Americans often align with 'socialism'. LOL) I believe in a properly-funded state medical system, I'm pro-education, pro-community, and am for the enfranchisement of people, not their marginalization.

It's quite easy to see how my comments could be taken in the ways they seemingly have. No matter. This is not a 'group hug' issue. I am not addressing those people who I have terms 'undesirable' (itself a quite open-ended term, ranging from 'deportable' to 'not appropriate to the occasion or circumstances'), I'm addressing the ridiculous notion –granted, by extension– of essentially providing a more upscale playground/meeting place for them. The truth is that if Hamilton's core undergoes a successful transformation, if Jackson Square is revitalized, if the business community somehow resurrects itself, if people actually move into 'the downtown', into the parts of 'the downtown' that have been on the downturn now for the better part of two decades, I guarantee that those people who are currently loitering in Gore Park, those people who would absolutely, definitely, positively prevent me from bringing my family, my children down there to frequent 'the downtown'...they simply will not be there once these changes have been effected.

Is this somehow an outrage? Is this akin to Olympics-hosting cities shipping their 'undesirables' out of sight's way during the two weeks? No. Because we're talking about a natural progression, something that happens organically in our free-market, capitalistic world: when there's an influx of change, of money, of business, of new tenants, new home owners, new resident...the profile of the area changes. 'Gentrification'? Maybe. But let's not play emotion-based semantical gymnastics here. I am all for affordable housing initiatives. I'm all for the concept of a greater alliance between low-income needs and government investment. I'm all for those who, due to circumstances, and even choice have found themselves at a very young age of staring into the face of their future, an extraordinarily low-ceilinged future at that, being assisted in rising up out of these circumstances. This is what is at the heart of being a Canadian, a far less 'you're on you're own' approach than of our neighbours to the south. But I am not so much a social fantasist as to entertain for one second that in looking at the reinvention of a city's core must accommodate the needs (!!!) of those who loiter.

Hamilton's core will, hopefully, change. I'm old enough to remember it before Jackson Square. I remember 'old' Gore Park. And I remember when it went through its first transformation. And I'll tell ya; there were no such levels of 'undesirables' then. I remember sitting in Gore Park, under the mammoth trees. Back then it was somewhere to take your kids if you were downtown. It was safe. Where were these 'undesirables' back then, the ones who currently congregate in Gore and on the steps of Jackson Square and up on the terrace? Elsewhere. (I'll leave it to you to name a wealth of possibilities.) And when things shift, they'll go back to those places. Is this some kind of hard-hearted displacement? Nope. It's the way of the world. (How come, I need to ask, that these 'undesirables' don't loiter down at Pier Four? Surely they can do down there what they currently do in Gore. The reason? It's not as convenient. And when Gore is returned to something that's not as 'comfortable' to them as it currently is...and truly, they own it right now, a patchy, gruff, hardscrabble kingdom that consistently makes me turn my head...they're find somewhere else to go.

Or, maybe, just maybe, they'll have had the opportunity to change their circumstances and are no longer needing, or no longer have the free time to spend hanging around. My best wishes go in that direction.

In the meantime, I'm for Gore Park and the rest of Hamilton's core being returned to those whose intent while there far exceeds a simple need to loiter. And ya know what? I bet I'm not alone in this.

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