Raise the Hammer

No parking at our major train and bus hubs,

Let's go back a little ways. The old train station used to be where Liuna is; plenty of parking.

The old bus terminal at John and Rebecca always had plenty of parking lots in the vicinity.

But Hamilton was traditionally a 'we do it here' city. You know, the industrial strip and other self-contained portions of the city that featured manufacturing? While there have always been 'commuters', the idea of Hamilton being a feeder-zone for 'places elsewhere' really only began to become a factor over the past 40-45 years. Its history in this regard is so different from 'bedroom communities' such as Burlington, Oakville and Mississauga.

I guess you either have to be old enough to remember, or take the time to do some research to really appreciate Hamilton's waxing and waning personality in respect to Toronto, an inferiority complex that has manifest itself in numerous ways.

I believe that while Hamilton has had some visionary thinking going on over the past century (and here's where we could have a fascinating mud-wrestling match), the truth is that 'progress' got away from the-powers-that-be, the focus eventually became peripheral development (despite what was developed in the downtown from '65-'85), politicians and developers fell in love with 'starting from scratch' (utilization of greenfields)...and all this was exacerbated by the city's industrial identity being castrated, a traumatic process that has undoubtedly sustained this 'legacy-malaise' of ours. (If things were so bad at the conclusion of the millennium that it was felt to be necessary to 'salvage' Hamilton by forcing an amalgamation with financially better-off, smaller communities, then surely to God this is proof of how badly the city's best interests had been both hijacked and neglected.)

Comment edited by mystoneycreek on 2011-07-22 16:58:07