Basic Economics and urban boundary expansion: Marxism for Dummies

Vincent J. Curtis

15 Oct 21

RE: No boundary expansion option ‘irresponsible’.  Op-ed by Ontario Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark. Published in the Hamilton Spectator 15 Oct 21.

RE: Mayor dismisses Minister’s missive.  By Teviah Moro, The Hamilton Spectator 15 Oct 21.

RE: Ford should rethink his plan on minimum wage.  Torstar editorial of 15 Oct 21

It seems that the only book on economics read in Hamilton is Marxism for Dummies.  What else can explain the comments by Mayor Fred Eisenberger, various city councillors, and the editorial on minimum wage?  Because that’s all the analyses amount to: Marxism, with all its attendant evils of ideology over the empirical.

The op-ed by Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark is pretty straightforward.  Hamilton is expected to gain 236,000 in population by the year 2051, and not expanding the urban boundary would result in a shortfall of 60,000 homes.  Homes of all kinds will be required.  Therefore, to seriously contemplate not expanding the boundary would be irresponsible, unrealistic, and, I would add, grotesque.  The reason for skyrocketing house prices now is the imposition of the “green belt” around Toronto, in case an object lesson were needed.

The Minister’s reasoning is clear, and none of the objections dispute his argument.  Mayor Fred “doesn’t care” what the Minister thinks, he, Fred, knows what’s best for the city.  He added that “affordability doesn’t simply boil down to supply.”  (No, it’s supply AND demand, and the demand is forecasted to be immense.)

According to Stop Sprawl HamOnt, urban expansion should be rejected because it “plays into the interests of developers”, as if home buyers had no interests of their own in finding an affordable home they liked.  (What clearer expression of Marx-inspired nonsense could there be?  A faux grass-root front spouting Marxian class warfare rhetoric!)

The higher carbon emissions (another Marx-inspired class warfare cause!) brought about by expansion (never quantified) are raised as objections, as if Hamilton’s future development will cause a fraction of the polar icecaps to melt.  And, of course, there’s that dummy poll, in which 90 percent of Hamiltonians did not participate.

The Minister is quite right to put people before politics, but with Marxism politics over people is all there is.

-30-