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Can Hamilton sustain its economic transformation?
(Stoney Creek News, Kevin Werner, Feb 21 2016)

Hamilton is being touted as the poster child for how a Canadian rust-belt city can transform into a diversified economy.

But is its perceived economic success a mirage or the real thing, asks Marvin Ryder, business professor at McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Business.

After withstanding the economic and political shockwaves of the 2001 terror attacks in New York, the subsequent War on Terror, and the dislocation caused by the 2008 economic recession, Hamilton, along with the rest of Canada, is finally “turning itself around.

“I’m not sure it is inevitable we will succeed,” Ryder told about 60 people at the Stoney Creek Chamber of Commerce luncheon Feb. 18 at LIUNA Gardens.

Despite the strategy by the city’s economic development office to move beyond steel and heavy industry – especially in light of losing U.S. Steel’s Burlington plant – Hamilton’s economy remains in a precarious situation, he says.

Ryder says seven out of 10 employers remain in the public sector. And once U.S. Steel leaves the city, he says Wal-Mart will become Hamilton’s third largest private sector employer.

“Hamilton needs private sector investment,” he says.


Read it in full here.