Le Golden Horseshoe est la région de cette forme qui tourne autour de l’extrémité ouest du lac Ontario au Canada. Au centre de la courbe du fer à cheval se trouve Hamilton, une ville de 520 000 habitants reconnue pour son industrie, son éducation et sa diversité culturelle, qui compte la troisième plus grande population née à l’étranger dans le pays. Située à 70 kilomètres au sud-ouest de Toronto (la collectivité intelligente de l’année de 2014), Hamilton était autrefois connue sous le nom de Capitale canadienne de l’acier, produisant 60% de l’acier canadien. C’est aussi une ville portuaire florissante qui exploite un aéroport qui a décuplé le nombre de passagers de 1996 à 2002. Un plan de développement économique de 30 ans a été lancé en 2003 dans le but de créer un immense parc industriel aérotropique autour de cet aéroport et pour capitaliser sur son succès.
From Steel to Fiber
Being an industrial city in the broadband economy, however, has its challenges. Its biggest steel producer nearly went bankrupt before returning to profitability in 2004. It subsequently sold out to US Steel, which decided to close its Hamilton operation in 2013. Hamilton’s economic development effort now focuses on playing to its 21st Century strengths. In 2014, it established HCE Telecom as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the city. HCE is deploying a 10-gigabit fiber network to serve city facilities, business, universities and hospitals and make the city more attractive to leading-edge employers. HCE also provides energy solutions, and has set a goal of attracting data centers with a combination of high-quality telecom and energy.
Forging New Companies
City leaders have also come to recognize that, in the past, the city wasted too much of potential of itseducational institutions including McMaster University and Mohawk College. It worked with university leaders to open McMaster Innovation Park and a second incubator downtown, which together house 23 startups focused on computer hardware and consumer technology. In September 2015, it opened a third facility called The Forge, which provides university students and community youth with entrepreneurship training, access to prototyping and production facilities, and help in starting their own businesses. The city is also in early talks with hospitals, academic institutions and the Chamber of Commerce on developing a life sciences cluster to leverage its strong hospital network and health research organizations.
Creating New Land for Development
With a lack of new land for development, Hamilton has focused on remediation of industrial brownfield sites. Through an innovative program called ERASE, it offers financial incentives to companies to clean up and repurpose polluted sites. From 2011 to 2014, the city approved more than 130 development grant applications worth more than C$20 million. Redevelopment underway has already generated C$3 million in construction and created 650 jobs.
Digital Equity
The decline of industrial employment has stranded workers who do not possess the skills and access to technology to compete in the broadband economy. A Hamilton charity operates a successful digital equity program called GreenBYTE that collects end-of-life computer systems, refurbishes them, and provides them to low-income households at no cost. It also provides computer certification training to low-income individuals. Since 2001, GreenBYTE has donated more than 12,000 computers to households, helped 100 graduates receive computer certifications and upgraded an after-school computer lab for the city.
Geography, trade, industry and hard work built Hamilton’s successful economic past. Its future will leverage those same assets to create an economy that can prosper in the digital era.
Population: 519,949
Website: www.hamilton.ca
Smart21 2016