Raise the Hammer

By the way, just to add another dimension to my thoughts: This is one, of many reasons, I believe Hamilton should re-position the downtown core and West Harbour as a historic feeling district akin to old Montreal. Imagine cobblestoning James St from the escarpment to harbour, Imagine turning Main, King, Cannon and Bay into walkable tree-lined streets where business owners can begin to re-invest in with new restaurants, patios, hotels, condos. Imagine being able to easily zip around Hamilton's great urban districts on LRT. Imagine a city filled with bike rental stations where one can explore Cootes Paradise, the waterfront trail, escarpment Bruce Trail and it's various lookouts and take in a local meal at Radius or Bread Bar and a late night concert all in one day? Nobody is coming here to see how fast they can drive on a desolate Cannon St or Main St. Perhaps the state of our downtown the past 40 years is one of the main reasons why we haven't seen this connection between our cultured wine region and city. Folks touring in that area would enjoy a downtown that feels cultured, safe and vibrant, not one that is trying to be a suburb. We could reap an entire new group of tourists by offering a wonderful, fun urban experience right here in the wine region. When it comes time to start developing the West Harbour, we would be wise to be more Distillery District and less Arizona lifestyle mall.

http://raisethehammer.org/blog/2650/publ...

http://toulouseletrek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/distillery-district-distillery-lane01-web1.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7080/73111...

Cultured tourists will come for this.
We have the old streets, the old buildings, the arts, the great food and a stunning waterfront. We need the political leadership to realize how we can position ourselves in this mega-region. We can offer something that nobody else can. 5-lane Mississauga style streets aren't our ticket. Fun, bustling urbanism is.

We've got some of this in place already. We need to connect the districts with walkable historic-feeling streetscapes, bike sharing and electric transit. Add historic street lamps, trees and floral planters to Main, King, James, John and Bay. Cobblestone Augusta, James and Barton from Ferguson to Locke.

I'm convinced that with the momentum downtown already, these investments by the city would see a whole host of private development and help create the urban core we want and that can become a huge draw in the GTA/Southern Ontario market.

In the meantime, promote what we have and link the city to the countryside by showing off our best.

http://media.thespec.com/images/d5/8f/b6...

http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/photos...

http://pics4twitts.com/wp-content/upload...

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8443/77456...

Comment edited by jason on 2013-02-17 09:47:02