Comment 13071

By trey (registered) | Posted October 19, 2007 at 13:08:16

nice thread going here.

I don't think the highway was a good investment at all. Half a billion bucks could've been better spent. But it was built. So I also don't want to see it fail. It's purpose (how it was sold to Hamilton) was to bring jobs to Hamilton. Instead it is making the houses easier to sell for the land speculators. That's it. So it is a failure, even 10,000 homes won't be enough tax base to pay for the highway maintenance and capital debt costs. I wish the anti-expressway people would stop wishing it failure, just out of bitterness. I think it was a bad decision, but we could try to make the best out of it. Unfortunately that opportunity has passed with the zoning of all the land to residential sprawl.

Re: Maple Leaf Rusty pointed out the other important white collar industries. Let me point out that I work in business services (advertising) and many of our clients are manufacturers and food service, with the odd law firm and insurance company. Guess who the downtown lawyers, ad agencies, package designers, printers, financial and insurance services would be doing work for? Maple Leaf.

It takes more than just service industries to make a balanced healthy economy. Hamilton needed Maple Leaf, they have a plant in the east end now, and Oliveri Foods office. Maple Leaf is one of Canada's biggest companies, they pay well, support local and Canadian agriculture and other Canadian suppliers. Heck they may have even took office space downtown if they had a plant on the mountain or paid for naming rights on Copps Coliseum or helped out Opera Hamilton.

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