Should Hamilton deamalgamate?
 

Simple. Should Hamilton split up?

Yes, but we should share some services (for example, police) like it was back in Hamilton-Wentworth days.

I think Binbrook is better at looking out for Binbrook than Hamilton is. I think Hamilton is better at looking out for Hamilton than Binbrook/Ancaster/Flamborough/Westdale/Dundas/Waterdown is. The amalgamation never should've happened in the first place.

EDIT - That being said, Hamilton and Stoney Creek are pretty much intertwined. I wouldn't be opposed to Stoney Creek being part of the same city.

I think at this point it might create more problems than it's worth to untangle everything. I can't even speculate how much de-amalgamation would cost, but I can guarantee that everyone, urban and rural, would end up paying for it.

Lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater. We should be focussing on how to make the new city work better rather than going through the destructive process of unravelling the amalgamation a decade down the road.

Its not working.

No. The division in this city is nigh-impossibly stupid, but even with deamalgamation all the surrounding areas would still share in the benefits of a city, from employment to culture to retail to food and more, without paying for them.

If they're enjoying Hamilton's culture, retail, food, and more, won't they be paying for them? Are you also against tourism?

I suppose I didn't say that very well :) My point was more that people easily see all the things the amalgamated city 'costs' them, while failing to realize that a lot of the benefits they enjoy come from the city as well.

I know people feel that the inner city is a parasite, taking their money and providing nothing in return. But it goes both ways. The city provides a lot that's not available in the outlying areas.

The city provides a lot of employment. Employment is really the big one for me. Tons and tons of people work in the "old city" and live in Waterdown, Ancaster, etc.... 10,000+ hospital employees (including over a thousand doctors [The number is 1,1xx - I don't recall the last two digits but it was on HHS's 2009 Donor Report's back page]), for one. For those who live in outlying areas, if they didn't have the benefit of employment in the "old city," their life would get difficult. The university's another one, as are government jobs, not to mention all the businesses.

By living in an outlying areas of Hamilton and working in the city, it's easy to want to pay taxes towards "their" lower-cost smaller town that doesn't have all the infrastructure of a real city to maintain, while enjoying its benefits. The fact that the lower city has a lot of ugliness concentrated there that allows people to easily despise it is really destructive here, as is the fact that other wards are quite averse to having any of the city's burden spread out more fairly.

There's other benefits besides jobs though - it's the same with the use of the city's hospitals (though at a municipal taxation level that doesn't matter as much). Same with the roads going to and from their work, shopping at Limeridge, etc. We're not talking about a few inter-city commuters here, we're talking about a huge majority of the population of those driving to work downtown who are coming from outlying areas. If there's a huge number of people from other areas of the city using them to get to/from the "old city" every day, it's fair for them to be taxed towards the infrastructure of the entire city, especially since a ton of the burden on our roads comes from commuters going through the city to and from work from outlying areas.

Sure, it goes both ways - the outlying areas provide growing areas for food, culture of their own, and more.

Not to mention what a giant step backwards we'd have for public transit and intracity initiatives if deamalgamation happened. It's so ridiculous for this city to be divided.

Poverty and division. If it's not one, it's the other in this city. And usually it's both.

Very well put, emge. I'm in complete agreement with you on this.

If we're to de-amalgamate it's likely Dundas, Ancaster, and Stoney Creek will stay with Hamilton. Flamborough could de-amalgamate but it's unlikely they would remain as a county, they would either have to amalgamate with Halton, K/W or spit Flamborough in pieces (Waterdown to Halton and rest to K/W).

So it's useless really.

What would be more realistic is if we could reform the municipal system to allow more authority, the country has changed since the horse and buggy era.

I'm with Emge on this one. Also, regional government was a waste when we had it and corresponded with Hamilton's decline (although I don't think it directly caused it, I don't think it helped either).

Lot of good point there, emge. I'm certainly reconsidering my vote.

I grew up in Glanbrook, and the amalgamation was very frustrating to the people out there. Taxes went up and services went down. I know the same happened in Ancaster, and I assume the same happened in the other amalgamated towns. There's a lot of frustration in those areas, and I can see how deamalgamation would be an attractive proposition.

What authorities would you like to see granted?

Steeltown I would think Ancaster Stoney Creek and Dundas would be the first to want out of Hamilton.

Question: What does it mean when the suburbs claim "services went down..." after amal.

I'm not accusing anyone of anything. I really want to know what that means. Less snowplowing, less grass cutting, fewer EMS, what?

Montreal saw some deamalgamation. Although the suburbs that did choose to leave still are part of a metropolitan aglomeration council which pools money for regional services like transit. And some of that pooling sends suburban tax dollars to the City of Montreal as they are the hub of the region and have to supply services that are used by many suburbanites, etc.

Those folks out there just mean they now have to pay for bums in downtown and not taxes to ancaster for there nice little parks.

Better than de-amalgamation would be to redraw the wards so that they no longer lie along the pre-amalgamation boundaries.

Snowplowing is a big one; it went from the day of/day after service to about a week after. Glanbrook had a balanced budget (possibly a budget surplus). The arena was apparently better funded, but I honestly don't know anything about that.