Quote:
Originally Posted by Cambridgite
Hamilton's downfall is its existing industrial base and image issues, but its location allows it to diversify, whereas more isolated places might not have that luxury. They can definitely play on McMaster as a strength as they're already starting to do. Being a real city, they can also tap into creative industries like media (think of the filming of Four Brothers and The Hulk) and attract the creative class to Hamilton as a cheaper and unique alternative to urban living in overpriced Toronto. I don't think Hamilton's future rests as a bedroom community. It's a fairly large city and although they're becoming increasingly intertwined with the Western GTA, I think it will still evolve into a city of business as long as people continue to move there. I also saw a chart showing the CMAs with the highest % of foreign-born residents. Hamilton was 3rd, between Vancouver and Kitchener. That's another big factor that will determine future growth.
So my vote is on Hamilton for being the next CMA to reach a million. Not sure who will be the next out of Quebec City and Winnipeg, but by the time any of these places reaches a million, Kitchener is likely to have closed the gap by a significant margin (uh oh, hope I haven't opened up a can of worms ).
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Everything you guys predict as a future growth pattern for Hamilton is already happening in Quebec! Hamilton has a big catch up to do if it wants to catch quebec, on many levels.
While the industrial struggling is not over yet in Hamilton, the ' creative class' is already very strong in Qc, the biotech sector is booming, the financial sector too, and the media ( music, film, video games) sector is gaining more jobs every day. There's about 5 office towers under construction in Quebec and the vacancy rate dropped to an all time low of about 2.6% .
Add to this a tourism industry that make Hamilton look like a no mans land, Quebec is where it's at. Hamilton doesn't really have any landmark or incredible things to attract people. No offense, but it's more a provincial industrial town like Trois-Rivières than a major pole like Quebec is. Its attraction power compared to Quebec is bleak.
From anytime between 2000 and 2007, Quebec was the third most visited destination in Canada, with an average of 7 millions tourists, about 4 times Hamilton's (1.7 million tourists) .
The point is that while Hamilton is still wondering ' What do we do now that industry is dying ???'
Quebec got the point 5 years ago!