[BRIEF NOTE] Hamilton Note
Mar. 4th, 2009 06:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldThe news from Hamilton is grim: Hamilton's steel plants, once the property of the prosperous independent steel firm Stelco but in recent years the Hamilton Works subsidiary of US Steel, is closed for the time being (at least).
Hamilton, a metropolis of a half-million people located at the western end of Lake Ontario and also the westernmost city of the Greater Toronto Area, is a traditionally industrial city that has seen hard times of late as international competition has grown. It has a bit of a sketchy reputation, with relatively high levels of poverty and urban decay in the core--Hamilton might be the closest thing to a rust belt city that Canada has. Lately, the city has seen something of a renaissance as Torontopnians have come to a city with low real-estate prices and plenty of fixer-uppers.
Some enterprising people are even offering tours of Hamilton's budding art scene.With luck, this may take off, but even if it does what will happen to all the people who are invested in the old economy of Hamilton, like the Hamilton Works steelworkers? The city may be as thoroughly gentrified as many Toronto neighbourhoods, and with as little attention paid to their indigenous denizens.
All this is going to make interesting background for my upcoming visit to Hamilton. Any ideas as to what specific things and trends I should look out for on the ground?
Operations will be closed over the next several weeks as Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel consolidates production at its facilities in Pittsburgh, Indiana and Alabama. Although the shutdowns are billed as temporary, the company gave no indication when the plants would resume production.
Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger said he was called by a U.S. Steel Canada representative who warned him of the impending announcement.
"I was stunned," he said, noting he has family working at the company, a connection many Hamiltonians have. "It's hitting pretty close to home."
"It's devastating for the community," said Bill Ferguson, leader of the United Steelworkers local at the Lake Erie plant in Nanticoke. "For the local people, this will be quite a blow. This plant, Lake Erie, has never shut down in its history."
U.S. Steel Canada, which bought Stelco for $1.9 billion in 2007, has already cut close to 700 of its 1,700 hourly workers in Hamilton, where it shut down its blast furnace in November. The remaining operations at the plant, including its steel finishing lines and coke ovens, will now be closed as well, said Rolf Gerstenberger, president of the United Steelworkers local at the plant.
All operations at Lake Erie Works, except for the coke ovens, will also close. "This is awful for Hamilton and it shouldn't be allowed," Gerstenberger said. "Layoffs are not solutions. They only make things worse."
Hamilton, a metropolis of a half-million people located at the western end of Lake Ontario and also the westernmost city of the Greater Toronto Area, is a traditionally industrial city that has seen hard times of late as international competition has grown. It has a bit of a sketchy reputation, with relatively high levels of poverty and urban decay in the core--Hamilton might be the closest thing to a rust belt city that Canada has. Lately, the city has seen something of a renaissance as Torontopnians have come to a city with low real-estate prices and plenty of fixer-uppers.
When his new neighbour handed him espresso and biscotti over the fence, any doubts Kevin Bowers had about his move from Toronto evaporated.
"That never happened to me in Riverdale," says Bowers, a stage manager in theatre.
It's not that he disliked his old Toronto home, but he was getting quite a bit of work in Mississauga and Hamilton, and he couldn't help but notice that real estate in the latter city was an incredible bargain.
Looking around his spacious, three-storey brick home in central Hamilton, he concludes: "I got twice the house for half the price."
Bowers sold his 1,800-square-foot semi-detached Riverdale house for $537,000 and bought the 3,000-square-foot Hamilton property – with a bonus driveway and garage – for $270,000.
"The mortgage is paid, I've got money in my pocket; this opens things up for travel."
While he loved his Riverdale neighbourhood, Bowers says Hamilton is safer and friendlier. He's now urging Toronto friends to look beyond the industrial view from the QEW and discover the quality houses, good restaurants, natural beauty and "cheap parking" that the city has to offer.
While Hamilton is surrounded by familiar suburban sprawl, with hundreds of new houses sprouting up in nearby Waterdown, Binbrook and Ancaster, the lip-smacking real estate bargains are to be found in the lower city, as the area beneath the Niagara Escarpment, or "The Mountain," is known.
Some enterprising people are even offering tours of Hamilton's budding art scene.With luck, this may take off, but even if it does what will happen to all the people who are invested in the old economy of Hamilton, like the Hamilton Works steelworkers? The city may be as thoroughly gentrified as many Toronto neighbourhoods, and with as little attention paid to their indigenous denizens.
All this is going to make interesting background for my upcoming visit to Hamilton. Any ideas as to what specific things and trends I should look out for on the ground?
