EnMark Associates

The 2010 Hamilton’s Vital Signs report paints a picture of Hamilton that is described by the Hamilton Community Foundation as “two cities that share the same urban boundary but little else. One city is an archipelago of affluent neighbourhoods with healthy, well-educated residents enjoying an enviable quality of life. The other city concentrates shocking levels of poverty, curtailed education, high unemployment and ill health into poor neighbourhoods that might as well be on a different planet”.

The Foundation calls on us for compassion, outrage and action in response to neighbourhood disparities, poor voter turnout, the need for a “living wage”, growing domestic violence, and child poverty (among other identified trends and issues).

This is required reading for anyone with an interest in bettering the community, predicting future prospects, or engaging more actively in civic life (there’s a great list of things you can do to help). As a city, we’ve come a long way. But as a community emboldened for the future we have considerable work still to do.