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By More roads (anonymous) | Posted March 15, 2010 at 18:19:51
Look at where nearly all the condo construction is happening in Toronto, near the Gardiner Expressway, a raised highway and a corridor of high public investment. All they did there was get rid of the industrial zoning and boom, large amounts of private residential investment moved in around it.
In Hamilton, our downtown is located very close to a private sector paradise we call the industrial sector. In this area, there are very few public roads, sidewalks, parks, or any other public investments, just acres of unbroken, privately owned land, rail and factories. In fact, this area has almost zero public investment and in 1995, when CN Rail was privatized, we lost even more when the railyards near Barton St. fell under private ownership. Since that time, has the downtown gotten better or worse?
In contrast, take a look at the financial sector of Toronto. It has two subway lines nearby, street cars, a city owned rail corridor, publicly owned Union Station, lots of Go train service, public highways (Gardiner Expressway) and even the Toronto Islands are owned by the city. And what is the result of this high concentration of public assets? Is it stagnation and poverty? No, it's an area of great wealth that Hamilton would love to have.
Look at Locke St. It has gotten much better ever since Hamilton got public Go Train service with the lines that run nearby.
The Perimeter road would be a great way to stimulate new private investment across the whole of the downtown and raise the cap on property values. Combine that with city efforts to eliminate the large swaths of industrial zoned land and Hamilton will not lose prosperity, we will start to build it.
Hamilton does not need, nor has never needed, the private sector to help create jobs, in fact the complete opposite is true, the private sector needs the public to create business opportunities. The best way to do that is to fill ALL areas of Hamilton with plenty of public assets.
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