3.

Accelerating Development and Resistance:

Contested Landscapes and Political Narratives

Urban Infrastructure, Suburbanization and the Automobile

During the early twentieth century, the private automobile became one of the pre-

eminent symbols of the technological progress and personal freedom represented by

modernization (Sheller and Urry 2002). Urban vitality was increasingly associated with

the unobstructed circulation of people, goods and services, conceptualizing roadways as

the veins and arteries of the city (Park et al 1925). As early as the 1920s, highway

infrastructure and the automobile were widely celebrated as a civilizing force with

universal benefits, emblems of human freedom and ingenuity that few could afford but

many admired. Hamilton became the home of Canada’s first automobile club in 1903

and local media soon echoed the booster fanfare that had surrounded the Great Western

Railway, praising the increasing governmental support for highway construction. The

Hamilton Spectator predicted that the city would become the hub of the “good roads

system” in Southern Ontario and favourably quoted engineer Austin Byrne’s description

of the highway as the literal embodiment of Western progress and civilization: “Roads

are the physical symbol by which to measure the progress of any age or people. If the

community is stagnant, the conditions of the roads will indicate the fact; if they have no

89
roads they are savages” (quoted in Hamilton Spectator, October 8, 1919).1 The idea of

roads as catalysts of progress and civilization endures.

The construction of highways suitable for automobile traffic was also seen by many

as a way of strengthening economic and social connections between communities

(Hamilton Herald, December 15, 1923). The Hamilton Spectator (October 8, 1919)

proclaimed that “the road is the connecting link between the rural and the urban, the

producer and the consumer… it brings the country and city closer together, makes their

interests less selfish, broadens the outlook of both the urban and rural resident, educates

each to appreciate the other, and it is a financial benefit that cannot be estimated.”

Landscaped “parkways” were widely promoted as a way of bringing urban drivers

closer to nature through an appreciation of the rural countryside (Wilson 1991). Scenic

drives provided leisurely, recreational routes within the city, often adjacent to parkland
1
The Hamilton Spectator was founded in 1846. Following the failure of the Hamilton Times in
1920 and the Hamilton Herald in 1936, the Spectator became the region’s only major daily
newspaper – a status that it retains to this day. This is, of course, quite unusual in a Canadian
city of over 500,000 people. Many of the people I interviewed for my research suggested that
the Spectator has a great deal of influence over political affairs in Hamilton. Freeman and
Hewitt (1979) reach a similar conclusion, claiming that the paper’s “monopoly of the local
market gives it tremendous social and political influence on the area, beyond that of any other
comparable media or business organization. Indeed, I relied heavily on the Hamilton Spectator
for my historical research, as there are no other competing publications that have provided as
much coverage of this issue. Freeman and Hewitt argue that the Spectator was notable for its
commitment to local news and investigative journalism during the 1960s, but that a change in
upper management during the 1970s introduced heavy-handed constraints on such critical
journalism and a turn towards a policy of strict editorial control. A number of reporters left the
paper at this time. One, Paul Warnick, recalled that the new editors “wanted a paper that does
not offend anyone. A family paper that just reported good news. His version lacked any positive
thrust and it tended to dishearten the journalists” (quoted in Freeman and Hewitt 1979: 97).
Many believe that the Spectator continues to demonstrate a “pro-business” editorial bias. Many
of the people I interviewed maintained that coverage of the Red Hill debate had been “biased”,
but this included both those against the expressway and those in favour, who detected an
“environmental bias” in the paper during the 1990s. What is clear is from my research is that the
Spectator editorial board began advocating for the road in the 1970s, following the period of
managerial change identified by Freeman and Hewitt.

90
(Figure 3.1). As Matthew Gandy notes, “nature became simultaneously more distant

(framed by the window of a moving car), more accessible (through greater public

contact with remote areas), and at the same time more individualized as an aesthetic

experience” (2002: 122).

Figure 3.1: A scenic drive following the edge of the Hamilton Escarpment,

c. 1950 (Architectural Conservancy of Ontario, 2008)

Despite this growing enthusiasm for the “civilizing” pleasures of the private

automobile, ownership remained limited to wealthy segments of the population during

the interwar period and urban development continued to concentrate around electric

streetcars lines in many cities, including Hamilton.2 The extension of bus service to the

escarpment in 1923 was followed by the annexation of land further south in 1929 and a
2

Streetcars were gradually replaced by motorized buses and eventually ceased operation in
1949.

91
gradual increase in population on “the Mountain”. A burst of housing construction in the

late 1920s, aided by funding from higher levels of government, focused predominantly

on new homes in the affluent west-end suburbs and on apartment buildings concentrated

near major downtown streets. Eastward expansion was limited by the abundance of

properties for infill development and the gradual extension of industrial lands into the

harbour. However, roadways and scattered land developments had begun to transform

the eastern periphery of the city, including the construction of a small airport adjacent to

the Red Hill Valley and a dumpsite near the mouth of the creek (Wood 1987).

Hamilton’s manufacturing sector thrived during the late 1920 but this boom was cut

short by the stock market collapse of 1929.3 While countries all around the world were

negatively affected by the crash, Canada was hit particularly hard due to its substantial

reliance on the export of wheat and other commodities. Between 1929 and 1933, the

height of the Great Depression, gross national product had declined by 40% and

national unemployment had risen to 27% (Struthers 1983). As the prices and export of

commodities rapidly declined, the worst hardships were faced by the working classes of

those regions most directly dependent upon primary industries such as farming, logging

and mining (Berton 1990). While the province of Ontario, with its more diversified

industrial economy, suffered less severe impacts, manufacturing centres such as

3
The various factors involved in the onset of the Great Depression remain the topic of debate
but include excessive stock speculation, an overproduction of goods within the United States,
and a decline in consumer demand as wage reductions and unemployment further reduced the
limited spending capacity of most individuals and families (Devine 1993). Having established
itself as a major creditor following the First World War, these problems in the US economy
triggered a string of financial crises in other countries linked by the “Gold Standard” system of
fixed currency rates.

92
Hamilton faired poorly as demand for industrial equipment, structural steel and

agricultural products rapidly declined. Many Hamilton manufacturers scaled back

drastically, cutting wages and laying off thousands of workers, and even large

companies such as Dofasco faced the threat of bankruptcy (Wood 1987).

All levels of government were unprepared to deal with the growing numbers of

jobless workers. Unemployment relief provided by the federal government initially

focused primarily on cost-sharing programs for provincially and municipally

administered public works programs (including the creation of national parks), until

protest from lower levels of government and the public increased the flow of direct

funds in 1932. Despite this increase in funding, Hamilton struggled as the demand for

relief increased. By 1933, this crisis would touch one in four families in the city. That

same year, a Public Welfare Department was created to distribute relief money and soon

began employing investigators to determine the eligibility of client families according to

their spending habits and level of sobriety (Weaver 1982).4

The Second World War brought dramatic changes to Hamilton. Although the war

did not generate the kind of local support evident in 1914, an estimated 20,000 local

men served in the armed forces (Freeman 2001). Many returned wounded or were killed

overseas. The surge in demand for munitions and other military supplies revitalized

4
These authoritarian measures, which included work camps established by the federal
government, fuelled discontent amongst the unemployed and helped garner support for a
flourishing of working-class political organization that ranged from cross-country marches to
the creation of a new political party, the social democratic Cooperative Commonwealth
Federation (which would merge with the Canadian Labour Congress in 1961 to create the New
Democratic Party of Canada) (Berton 1990).

93
local industries and brought a massive influx of workers to the city. By 1942 the city

faced an unprecedented housing crisis (Wood 1987). Responding both to the housing

crisis and to new provincial zoning regulations, the municipal government hired

planning consultants to develop a master plan for directing and managing the future

growth of the city. E.G. Faludi’s master plan, completed in 1947, classified the majority

of the residential communities in the city’s industrial north-end as “blighted” and

recommended that these areas be zoned exclusively for industrial uses. The plan called

for the expansion of this industrial zone along the waterfront and advocated further

infilling of the harbour, with “obnoxious industries” to be located out beyond the

eastern city limits. Faludi’s vision ruled out recreational uses of the harbour, while

advocating the designation of recreational areas along the shores of Lake Ontario and a

greenbelt park system at the edges of the city, including the Red Hill Valley (Cruikshank

and Bouchier 2004).

This influential plan utilized land use zoning as a means of compartmentalizing

what were seen as the different essential functions and spaces of the city in order to

facilitate better management of the whole. This view accorded with the prevailing

notion of planning as a means of imposing rational order on urban chaos (Boyer 1983).

Building upon the functionalist model of urban metabolism, the modern city was

conceptualized as an engineered system that could be perfected by scientific

management and unified by the construction of more efficient circulatory networks such

as roads, sewers, water pipes and electrical wires. As Matthew Gandy (2006: 68)

observes, “by the early twentieth century we find an increasing emphasis on the

94
‘scientific management’ of cities in the segregated and hierarchical ordering of urban

space.” From this perspective, urban spaces were seen not as lived spaces but as raw

material – abstracted and modular zones that could be reorganized and re-engineered to

serve a particular function in the larger urban machine or organism (Lefebvre 1991).

The practice of modern urban planning, underpinned by faith in linear technological

progress and the transformative possibilities of rational, objective and “non-political”

engineering, gave rise to grand visions of urban revitalization, but often overlooked or

disregarded socio-ecological complexities on the ground (Graham and Marvin 2001).

In the case of Hamilton, the official zoning of industrial lands had the effect of

facilitating the growth of the city as an industrial port while formally legitimating and in

some cases intensifying social and environmental inequalities. As the modern city was

divided into discreet uses and zones, residential areas themselves became more sharply

differentiated on the basis on income, language and country of origin. Many new

immigrants and working class families settled in the north end neighbourhoods adjacent

to the industrial waterfront while suburban housing developments aimed at middle and

upper class residents began to rapidly expand on the escarpment (Wood 1987). By mid-

century, the new zoning measures had virtually eliminated the waterfront as a space for

recreational and residential use, sanctioned the further extension of industrial lands into

the harbour and encouraged the encroachment of industrial development into

neighbouring residential areas designated as “blighted” (Cruikshank and Bouchier

2004) (Figure 3.2).

95
 Figure 3.2: Aerial view of industrial development along Hamilton’s eastern

waterfront, 1970s (Weaver 1982)

Those living adjacent to or within the industrial zones lining the waterfront and the

north end were faced with growing levels of water and air pollution. In 1943, a

provincial investigation estimated that 70 million gallons of industrial waste and 25

million gallons of municipal sewage flowed into the bay each day, a good portion

untreated (Hamilton Spectator, December 23, 1943). For many local people, the harbour

had been transformed from an environmental resource to a hazard. Of course, pollutants

did not remain confined to the careful divisions of space introduced by urban planners

and soon swimming, long since banned on the south shore, was prohibited along the

north shore and beach strip sites frequented by more affluent citizens. Similarly, air

pollutants did not remain within the industrial core or along major arteries, spreading

96
throughout the city as industrial activity and roadways expanded (Cruikshank and

Bouchier 2004).

These local changes in urban form and spatial organization were influenced in large

part by the Fordist systems of mass production, distribution and consumption that

proliferated in the wake of the Second World War. The Fordist model of development or

“regime of accumulation” was based on compromises between large corporations,

labour movements and the state.5 While industrial automation and Taylorist managerial

strategies had made it possible to produce standardized commodities on a grand scale it

was widely recognized, following the organizational vision of mass production and

mass consumption promoted by Henry Ford, that this increase in mass produced

commodities would require a corresponding increase in the time and resources available

to consumers (Lipietz 1992).

In response to growing pressure from labour movements and in an effort to address

the crisis of “overproduction” that many saw as a central factor in the onset of the Great

Depression, the Fordist paradigm advocated governmental regulation of wages and

prices to promote high levels of unemployment and collective wage bargaining to reach
5
The “regime of accumulation” is a concept from the regulationist school of political economy.
It refers to the prevailing or hegemonic model for organizing the production and reproduction of
labour power and capital in a given historical period. This includes forms of inter-capitalist
competition, investment and financial management strategies, established and institutionalized
relationships between capital and labour, and forms of government and governance at various
scales. These elements are related to each other by modes or processes of social regulation –
institutionalized practices and rules, social norms and habits that provide a tenuous and
temporary foundation for compromise between the conflicting interests that threaten to
destabilize the mode of accumulation (Lipietz 1992; Esser and Hirsch 1994; Goodwin and
Painter 1996). The “regime of accumulation” should be understood not as a categorically
exclusive periodization of political economic change, but as a way of linking together trends
and explaining periods of general stability within capitalist economies.

97
negotiated compromises with trade unions (Aglietta 1979). Governments in the

wealthier capitalist nations adopted Keynesian economic policies that included

increased national spending and financial support for public services and infrastructure;

the subsidization of domestic industries; wage increases and provisions for job security;

and improvement of access to standardized social services such as health care,

education housing and unemployment insurance.6 Many of these standardized services

were administered at the municipal scale, involving “an increased degree of government

planning of economic and social life” (Painter 1995: 284). This development model

proved to be quite successful in raising living standards, reducing international rivalries

and containing the crisis tendencies of capitalist economies, leading to a twenty-five

year period of relatively stable and sustained growth (Harvey 1990).

Of course, the compromises reached between governments, corporations and labour

in the post-War period were partial, tenuous and hard-won, in part the result of decades

of organizing and protest on the part of labour movements.7 A number of local strikes

6
John Maynard Keynes ([1936] 1980) and other influential theorists argued that economic
stability could only be provided by government intervention and investment, in order to
stimulate demand and insulate domestic economies from both the nationalistic rivalries that had
erupted in two World Wars and the potentially fatal problems of overproduction that had been
experienced during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Keynes recognized that profitability
requires a certain degree of unemployment, as costs are reduced by lowering wages or replacing
workers with new technologies, but he demonstrated that these measures present a major
obstacle to economic growth because they result in a lack of demand for the goods produced.
7
Furthermore, the benefits of Fordism were not extended equally to all, leading to significant
discontent. David Harvey (1990: 137-138) writes, “to begin with, Fordist wage bargaining was
confined to certain sectors of the economy and certain nation states where stable demand
growth could be matched by large-scale investment in mass-production technology… The
resultant inequalities produced serious social tensions and strong social movements on the part
of the excluded – movements that were compounded by the way in which race, gender, and
ethnicity often determined who had access to privileged employment and who did not.” This
discontent became particularly volatile during the 1960s, manifested in popular uprisings within

98
occurred throughout the 1940s, of which the longest and most volatile was the 1946

strike at Stelco, Hamilton’s largest steel manufacturer. This strike lasted over three

months and involved a number of violent confrontations but, with substantial local

support from the public and sympathetic politicians such as trade unionist Sam

Lawrence (who served as mayor from 1943 to 1949), the workers successfully gained

concessions from Stelco (Weaver 1982). Building on Hamilton’s long legacy of labour

organizing, these efforts had lasting impacts not only for local workers and workplaces

but on the political culture of the city, representing a challenge to the hegemony of

business interests and fostering a palpable sense of tension and mistrust between local

growth coalitions and their critics. As Bill Freeman (2001: 151) writes, “to workers and

management alike, the results of the strike came to symbolize that the old autocratic

ways would not be tolerated anymore. People expected to be treated with dignity and

respect, and they expected to be paid a living wage.”8

During the period of economic stability and vitality that followed the war, urban

infrastructures expanded rapidly in the West. Cities became nodal points within

networked systems for water, gas, electricity, road transportation, telephony, and radio

and television broadcasting. Urban planning supported mass production and mass

consumption by facilitating the expansion of these networks. Their development

the wealthier capitalist nations and anti-colonial struggles throughout the so-called Third World
(Wallerstein 1989).
8
Nevertheless, as discussed in more detail below, labour politics in Hamilton would remain
divided between conservative and more radical wings throughout the later half of the century,
presenting few subsequent challenges to dominant narratives of “growth” and “progress”
(Freeman and Hewitt 1979).

99
entailed the redirection and exploitation of natural processes, from water to electricity,

on an unprecedented scale. Cities had become deeply dependant on the extraction of

resources, and particularly fossil fuels, that were now made readily available as

everyday amenities and mass-produced commodities – water from the tap, oil from the

pump, food from the supermarket shelf (Graham and Marvin 2001). The domestication

and control of ecological processes and materials through infrastructural networks

supported the modern notion of the domestic sphere as safe and autonomous, physically

and symbolically separating the “good” or processed nature available in the modern

home from the “bad nature” kept outside of its walls: a wild, unproductive or

contaminated nature identified with waste, disease and pollution (Kaika 2004).

Physically and conceptually distanced from agricultural activities and material

interaction with non-human nature, the modern citizen experienced nature primarily via

the mediated images of advertising and entertainment, within the aestheticized

landscapes of public parks and suburban lawns, and in the act of consumption (Wilson

1991). As William Cronon (1991: 340) observes, “the ecological place of production

grew ever more remote from the economic point of consumption, making it harder and

harder to keep track of the true costs and consequences of any particular product.” This

problem remains a serious one today but first became particularly pronounced in the

Fordist city, which intensified the conceptual and material divisions between urban life

and the basic conditions of survival (Keil and Graham 1998). The “natural

environment” was defined as a non-human realm entirely separate from both humanity

100
and the urban (Cronon 1995), and valued primarily as the provider of resources and

absorber of wastes for economic activity (Daly and Cobb 1989).

The emergent “consumer society” was increasingly focused around the idealized,

gendered and racialized model of the nuclear family, the single-family dwelling, and the

modern suburb, which allowed those with the necessary means to live at a distance from

the perceived danger and congestion of inner cities while remaining connected to urban

life and workplaces via modern communications and transportation infrastructures such

as telephone and highway networks (Interrante 1983; Fishman 1990). Urban form was

increasingly organized around the spatial divisions between production and

consumption, exemplified by the rapid growth of suburbia (Rome 2001). Whereas urban

development in the previous century had tended to follow a star-shaped pattern along

the lines of streetcar tracks, the modern city was characterized by “a multitude of

differentiated centers of activity” (Hoover Commission, quoted in Interrante 1983: 91).

The means of dispersal -- the automobile -- had also been on hand since the
1920s. But it took the rising economic power of individuals to appropriate
space for their own exclusive purposes through debt-financed homeownership
and debt-financed access to transport services (auto purchases as well as
highways), to create the "suburban solution" to the underconsumption
problem. Though suburbanization had a long history, it marked post-war
urbanization to an extraordinary degree. It meant the mobilization of effective
demand through the total restructuring of space so as to make the consumption
of the products of the auto, oil, rubber, and construction industries a necessity
rather than a luxury (Harvey 1989: 39).

The decentralized suburban home and the automobile became the focal points of

modern networked consumption and “demand-side” urbanization, supported by

101
government subsidization and fed by an expanding industry for mass advertising,

market research, and “consumer engineering” (Lupton and Miller 1992).

The automobile and its associated infrastructure now played a pivotal role in the

political economy of Fordist urbanization, linking together the automobile industry with

oil production, construction, housing and real-estate, advertising, military industries,

and forms of spatial organization oriented around the consumption of consumer goods.

Freund and Martin (1993) refer to the “auto-industrial complex” that now links together

the interests of the private-sector highway lobbies (including the auto industry, oil

companies, trucking companies and road construction), business lobbies (including

housing and real-estate) and public sector highway and transportation departments.9

Sharing common networks of association and common frames of reference, these actors

work to shape and sustain the public discourses and political economic relationships

that make the private automobile such an indispensable commodity for many and such a

profitable commodity for some. The case of the Red Hill Creek Expressway provides a

particularly rich example of the efforts to perpetuate and challenge this “automobile

hegemony.”

Road to Progress: Early Proposals for the Red Hill Creek Expressway

9
Such linkages are particularly evident in Southern Ontario, where auto manufacturing and
related industries play a very prominent political and economic role. Following the 1965 Auto
Pact between Canada and the United States, auto-manufacturing plants built by Ford and
General Motors became major customers for Hamilton’s steel producers (Anderson 1987).

102
By mid-century, the Red Hill Valley remained a primarily rural area at the eastern limits

of the city, though many of the farms and orchards had gradually vanished following the

purchase of land by the Hamilton Parks Board in 1929. The open and treeless expanse

of fields had gradually been covered over by patches of shrubby fields and forest – a

secondary succession containing species such as Manitoba maple, white elm and grey

dogwood that was encouraged by the efforts of the Parks Board (Duncan 1998).

Wildlife remained relatively abundant and many local families continued to hunt in the

valley for food during the 1930s and 40s (Stewart-DeBreau and Nugent 1998). Housing

developments had appeared near the western edge but many fruit farms were still in

operation. Some recreational sites had been established, such as the Glendale Golf and

Country Club and the Hamilton Archery Club. During the 1930s, a small airport had

been constructed near the valley but gradually ceased operation as flights moved to the

larger Mount Hope airport on the escarpment. In the lower valley to the north, light

industrial developments were emerging near the estuary of the Creek, built atop

extensive wetlands that had been partially covered over by fill, removing the floodplain

in the process (Duncan 1998). Three old municipal landfill sites covered much of the

marshland near the Creek. In the early 1950s, these sites were “capped” and replaced by

a new site further upstream, the Upper Ottawa Street landfill for domestic, commercial

and industrial waste. To the south, the land above the escarpment was primarily

undeveloped, with scattered family farms. But the pressures of urban development were

increasing as Hamilton’s manufacturing industries expanded and city planners worked

103
to accommodate the growing demand for residential, commercial and industrial

development (Peace 1998).

As wartime restrictions on federal immigration were removed, more people began

relocating to Hamilton, including larger numbers from Eastern Europe and Italy. In

1949, the same year that Stelco launched a huge land extension into the harbour, the

City undertook its largest land annexation to date, expropriating extensive tracts of land

eastwards to the edge of the valley and southwards to accommodate the housing boom

on the escarpment. The following year, the Parks Board purchased over one hundred

acres of land within the valley, in anticipation of future development (Peace 1998). The

municipal government began investing in the extension of infrastructure to the

escarpment and gradual expansion of the handful of roadways connecting the upper and

lower city. The population on the escarpment grew from an estimated 25,000 in 1952 to

50,000 by the end of the decade. According to local historian John Weaver (1982: 175),

“the process of residential expansion was typical of North American suburban sprawl…

Industry was excluded and commercially zoned land was snapped up by shopping

plazas.”

Pressure for the accommodation of increasing automobile traffic on local roadways,

particularly across the dividing line of the escarpment, grew over the decades to follow.

Already by the 1950s, city planners and politicians had begun considering the

construction of a roadway in the Red Hill Valley to provide a north-south linkage at the

eastern edge of the city. A traffic report commissioned by the municipality in 1956

advocated the creation of a network of one-way streets and a ring of expressways

104
circling the city in order to increase capacity and improve the circulation of traffic

within, to and from Hamilton. A subsequent consultant’s report provided more detailed

cost estimates for the construction of expressways in the west end, through the Chedoke

Valley, and in the east end, through the Red Hill Valley, along with connections to the

provincial Queen Elizabeth Way.

The one-way network was instituted in 1956 and plans began to take shape for the

Chedoke Expressway, completed in 1963, but the need for the Red Hill route became

the subject of more extensive debate. Mayor Lloyd D. Jackson and others argued that

the highway would not be necessary for another decade and advocated the widening of

an existing escarpment crossing and arterial road, Highway 20, located several

kilometres east of the valley (Hamilton Spectator, June 11, 1957). Following further

reports and debate, City Council concluded that traffic levels did not warrant an

expressway in the valley and relinquished the lands that had been placed under

expropriation (Hamilton Spectator, May 8, 1958). Nevertheless, the City continued to

solicit proposals for an east-end expressway (Hamilton Spectator, June 22, 1959) as part

of the larger perimeter road system, which remained a central feature of subsequent

traffic planning documents such as the 1963 Hamilton Area Transportation Study.

Following an influential consultation report, these new road networks became

embedded in Hamilton’s 1967 Official Plan.

By this time, the valley had undergone some dramatic changes. Most of the

remaining farms had vanished and suburban development now encroached upon the

watershed of the Red Hill Creek from the east and south. By the late 1960s, the City of

105
Hamilton had acquired over one thousand acres of land in the valley and the area was

seen as a convenient infrastructural corridor for servicing much of this new

development. Natural stream beds were replaced by storm and combined overflow

sewers that emptied directly into the creek and trunk sewer lines were buried

underground, requiring realignment of the creek bed at some locations and actually

further encouraging secondary secession along their lengths (Duncan 1998). Hydro lines

were erected through the valley and a gas pipeline was built in the southern end. Much

of the valley now remained little used except for day-use recreational activities and flora

and fauna flourished under these conditions, “renaturalizing” areas that had previously

been used for agriculture. Walking trails were established, including a portion of the

famous Bruce Trail, and the recreational value of the area was emphasized by the

Hamilton Region Conservation Authority in its recommendations for the acquisition of

more public land (Peace 1998).

Steel manufacturing flourished in the 1960s, particularly following the signing of

the 1965 Auto Pact between Canada and the United States, an agreement that

encouraged large-scale automobile production in Ontario by removing national tariffs

(Anderson 1987). The city’s population expanded and the urban boundary was extended

further east and a great distance to the south to accommodate the rapid growth of

suburban development above the escarpment. By 1966, approximately 298,000 people

lived in the city, with almost one third on “the mountain” (Weaver 1982). As the

suburbs expanded, concern grew over the flight of people and businesses from the

downtown core. The situation would worsen over the coming decades as more affluent

106
Hamiltonians gravitated towards the edges of the city (Taylor 1987), accompanied by

the development of large suburban shopping centres. With a local economy dominated

by manufacturing, the demand for downtown office space remained low but local

politicians began to champion large urban renewal projects to attract businesses and

people back to the core. These projects proved to be very controversial, involving wide-

scale disruption of local neighbourhoods and revealing troubling ties between local

politicians and the development industry that cast doubt on the prevailing notion of

urban planning as a matter of objective and apolitical engineering (Freeman and Hewitt

1979).10 These renewal projects and political scandals spurred the rise of very active

10
Further political controversy surrounded the Hamilton Harbour Commission during the
1970s. The Commission, a three-member body composed of one municipal and two federal
representatives, was created in 1912 to manage the harbour and waterfront. Operating with
relatively little oversight from government, it had been instrumental in facilitating the expansion
of industrial lands into the harbour, selling sections of the harbour to Stelco and Dofasco,
Hamilton’s largest steel producers, for very low prices. However, by the late 1960s, almost one
third of the harbour had been lost to infill and this practice was becoming increasingly
controversial as public concern mounted over the ecological impacts. A 1971 proposal for
further expansion, arranged in secret between the Commission and the steel companies, erupted
into controversy when the Hamilton and Region Conservation Authority protested against their
exclusion from the process and warned against the increases in water and air pollution that
would result. The provincial government intervened to support the Conservation Authority, but
then soon reversed their position and sided with the Harbour Commission, allowing the infilling
to proceed (Freeman and Hewitt 1979). Further west, “Bayfront Village”, a residential
development built on landfill from a recently constructed escarpment access, was halted in 1973
due to public opposition and the emerging controversy around the linkages between
Commission representatives, local development interests and political parties. City
representative Kenneth Elliot was eventually forced to resign as it became clear that he had used
his position to promote the interests of businesses in which he was directly or indirectly
involved. Despite unexplained delays in the launch of an investigation by the RCMP, Ellliot was
eventually charged and convicted for his activities as part of an investigation that revealed
extensive and long-standing practices of price-fixing, bribery and kick-backs within the
Canadian dredging industry and resulted in charges against numerous firms (Palango 1994). The
extent of involvement from federal representatives and politicians such as John Munro in these
illegal activities remains unclear but the system of local political patronage is well established
(Jacek 1979). Further connections to organized crime, which flourished in Hamilton during the
1950s, 60s and 70s, were suggested by the exposure of a massive money-laundering operation
involving one of the former developers of Bayfront Village and other local businesses (Freeman

107
built heritage and downtown revitalization groups, alongside and often sharing

membership with local environmentalist organizations. This political activity, which

centered around criticism of the seemingly close relationships between the development

industry and city hall, drew in part on Hamilton’s rich history of labour activism and a

long-established political culture of opposition between industrial capitalists and

workers.

By the 1970s, concern about the wider impacts of suburbanization was growing

amongst local planners, politicians and the public at large. Plans for the perimeter road

were revived, alongside considerations for expanding bus service and developing a

rapid transit system. The City soon abandoned plans for an east-west highway in the

lower city due to the high costs of expropriating land in this now densely developed

area (Hamilton Spectator, February 20, 1970) but began purchasing land along the route

of the east-west “Mountain Highway” that was proposed to run along the southern edge

of the city limits, as an extension of the provincial Highway 403. In the effort to

demonstrate the need for the projects, planners emphasized the new housing

developments proposed for the east and west mountain, the expansion of the Hamilton

Civic Airport at Mount Hope, and the accommodation of traffic moving between the

provincial highways to the west and north of the city (Hamilton Spectator, March 22,

1972). Emphasis was also placed on linkage to the proposed Highway 6 running south

to Nanticoke, the site of new industrial developments during the 1970s that included a

and Hewitt 1979).

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nuclear plant and, much to the chagrin of many Hamiltonians, the future location of

Stelco’s new primary steel making facility (Anderson 1987).11

The Provincial government agreed to provide 75% of the funding for the escarpment

highway and a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) was created, composed of

municipal and provincial planners and engineers. City Council continued to support the

designation of the Red Hill valley as parkland and expressed concern about the negative

impacts of running a north-south link through the valley from the Mountain Highway to

the lakeshore but the province indicated hat they wished to provide funding for a single

project incorporating both of the roadways proposed in the 1963 Hamilton Area

Transportation Study. As Jeffrey argues, with reference to internal memos and reports

from provincial and municipal staff, the Technical Advisory Committee was concerned

first and foremost with addressing the projected increases in automobile traffic and

regarded the Red Hill valley as the least expensive means, financially and politically, of

improving traffic circulation (Jeffrey, Ball and Henderson 1985).

Some local business interests, however, saw the highway as a stimulus for economic

growth, particularly within industries related to transportation, trucking, construction,

housing and real estate. As early as 1971, members of the Hamilton Automobile Club

collaborated with allies from the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce to create an Urban

Transportation Task Force charged with developing “a coordinated philosophy

11
Further uproar was created by Stelco’s decision to move its head offices to Toronto in 1968.
This decision shook the confidence of local politicians, following in the wake of the closure or
relocation of some notable businesses, including the Studebaker car assembly plant in 1966
(Freeman 2001).

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concerning the future of transportation needs in Hamilton and area” (Urban

Transportation Task Force 1973: 1). In this document, produced for city councillors and

staff, the proposed highways are presented as “an essential part of a perimeter system

which is vitally important to the future of Hamilton” (ibid: 2), linking the escarpment

suburbs and the industrial waterfront, and attracting new businesses to “greenfield”

industrial parks on the escarpment. Rapid rail transit had become a prominent feature in

discussions about addressing the looming “traffic crisis” (Hamilton Spectator, April 4,

1973) but was dismissed by the Task Force as too costly and “unrealistic” in light of

“the expressed preference of citizens for private transportation” allegedly demonstrated

by rising levels of automobile registration (1973: 4). Council was advised to “consider

carefully but not unreasonably overstress the place of transit and the factors affecting

ecology” and environmental critiques were anticipated by their argument that the

highways would “improve the environment” by reducing traffic congestion on city

streets (ibid: 6).

Further support for the Red Hill route came from proponents of the “Saltfleet

satellite city” development that had been proposed for the rural lands on the escarpment,

adjacent to the valley’s southeast limits. It is crucial to note that this development, at the

southern fringe of the nearby suburban town of Stoney Creek, was planned by the

province on lands owned by the Ontario Land Corporation12 and was one of a number of

12
The Ontario Land Corporation was a provincial agency that bought and sold land on behalf of
the government. In 1993, the agency was renamed the Ontario Realty Corporation (ORC) and
reformed as a public-private hybrid to manage land holdings and buildings. Since the 1970s, the
agency has faced criticism for allegedly selling land to developers at very low prices. In 2000,
charges were laid against two employees of the ORC and a private sector environmental
engineer for their alleged involvement in a land fraud scheme that involved bid rigging and

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suburban satellite cities in the Greater Toronto Area actively planned and promoted by

the provincial Conservative party during this period.13 The Province predicted that up to

75,000 people would be living in this new development by 1985 (Hamilton Spectator,

April 4, 1975). Although Highway 20 (also known as Centennial Parkway) was in equal

proximity to this proposed development, east-end politicians and local neighbourhood

groups such as the Centennial Parkway Ratepayers mobilized to oppose its use as a

north-south link, pointing to the substantial residential and commercial development

that now lined the road (Hamilton Spectator, June 5, 1974). Municipal and provincial

politicians from the east end of the city, including neighbourhood groups on Kenilworth

Avenue, a major east-end artery that was regarded as another possible route, made

similar efforts. A strong and diverse coalition in favour of the valley route had begun to

take shape, including neighbourhood associations, politicians and planners at the

municipal and provincial level, business organizations, land speculators and real-estate

developers, construction and transportation companies – part of a larger “pro-growth”

regime of governmental and business interests that emphasized economic progress

through support for manufacturing industries, suburban development and roadway

financial kickbacks between the public and private sector. These individuals were found guilty
in 2007 (Toronto Star, October 6, 2007).
13
Many local and provincial politicians from the Stoney Creek area were staunch supporters of
the satellite city development (later named Heritage Green) and a north-south highway through
the valley, thereby avoiding the expansion of Highway 20. One particularly influential politician
was Gordon Dean, who served as the mayor of Stoney Creek and chair of the Regional
Transportation Committee during the 1970s and went on to become a provincial member of
parliament for the Progressive Conservative party in the 1980s. Controversy would later
surround rumours of a “verbal agreement” made in the late 1970s between Stoney Creek
politicians and the Region of Hamilton-Wentworth that no improvements would be made to
Highway 20 until an expressway was built in the valley (Stoney Creek News, May 6, 1998).

111
networks.

The Technical Advisory Committee and traffic commissioner Ray Desjardins

continued to exert pressure on City Council, advising the city that a highway could co-

exist with “existing or planned recreation and conservation facilities, particularly if

proper precautionary measures are taken during construction and proven environmental

protection features are incorporated in the design of the facility” (City of Hamilton

Planning, Engineering and Traffic Technical Committee, quoted in Jeffrey et al. 1985:

216). Nevertheless, the Council remained opposed and on March 14, 1974, unanimously

adopted a resolution stating “that this council make clear its intention to retain the

natural character of the Red Hill Creek Valley and to maintain permanently its present

natural state” (quoted in Peace 1998: 227). In response, members of the Advisory

Committee warned that the province could withdraw funding for both highways and

that removal of the valley route from these plans might require a costly re-routing of the

Mountain Highway (Hamilton Spectator, August 21, 1974).

By the end of the year, the Committee had commissioned a report from the

provincial Ministry of Transportation and Communications, popularly known as the

“Radbone Study”, that compared four possible routes for the north-south highway in

terms of “traffic analysis, environmental impact, engineering impacts and cost”: one

running through the valley, one further west on Kenilworth Avenue, another further east

on Highway 20, and a fourth on Fruitland Road in the rural periphery much further east

(Figure 3.3). The study purported to demonstrate that the valley was “quite the best

from the traffic and engineering standpoints,” presenting “a difficult trade-off between a

112
unique natural feature versus the only cost-effective alternative that satisfies future

demands” (Ministry of Transportation and Communications 1975: 42). Many

councillors denounced this report as an intimidation tactic that downplayed the long-

term financial, social and environmental costs of the Red Hill route and exaggerated the

costs of the alternatives (Hamilton Spectator, January 3, 1975). The Technical Advisory

Committee urged city councillors to allow more detailed analysis of all four routes but

the politicians soon voted 10 to 8 in favour of retaining the valley as parkland. The

Hamilton Spectator declared the Red Hill route “a dead horse” and advised politicians

to “bury it and get on with plans for another route” (February 27, 1975).

Figure 3.3: Red Hill Valley route, with alternate routes Kenilworth Avenue and

Highway 20 highlighted. Fruitland Road lies still further east.

113
 Support for City Council’s position came from a growing coalition of local groups

and citizens inspired by the rise of environmentalism, along with many residents and

community groups living near the valley. The Hamilton Region Conservation Authority

steadfastly opposed an expressway in the valley, “the only large tract of regional open

space in Hamilton east”, emphasizing its value as a recreational site alongside its

benefits for wildlife and human health (Hamilton Spectator, August 31, 1973). Clear

Hamilton Of Pollution (CHOP), a grassroots environmentalist organization founded in

1969, presented further opposition. CHOP became very active in the early 1970s,

coordinating a local Federation of Environmental Groups that produced the first

inventory of natural areas in Hamilton in 1972. The following year, the group organized

114
a public walk in the valley that included local councillors and engaged in public

education and lobbying, primarily through letter-writing and public meetings.

Composed to a large extent by predominantly middle-class citizens with a professional

or amateur interest in nature conservation, these groups had few connections to

Hamilton’s labour unions and social justice groups at this time.

Environmentalists emphasized the ecological and recreational value of the valley as

one of the last “natural areas” in the city. Indeed, the creek was now the last remaining

unpaved creek flowing into Lake Ontario within the Hamilton region. These arguments

were given additional weight by the warnings of global environmental crisis presented

by the Limits to Growth report of 1973, concerns over the availability of oil and other

resources following the OPEC crisis, and successful public mobilizations against other

large-scale development projects in the Greater Toronto Area, including the cancellation

of Toronto’s Spadina Expressway in 1972.14 As in other North American cities (Rome

2001), urban environmentalism in Hamilton drew upon a number of ideological

currents, including conservation movements, wilderness preservation movements, the

growing science of ecology, urban heritage movements, more radical left politics

offering a broad critique of militarism, racism, sexism and consumerism, and more
14
In Toronto, the Spadina Expressway met with fierce public resistance, involving street
protests, lobbying and the participation of luminaries such as Jane Jacobs and Marshall
McLuhan (Nowlan and Nowlan 1970). The Province of Ontario eventually intervened, with
Premier William Davis declaring, “if we are building a transportation system to serve the
automobile, the Spadina Expressway would be a good place to start. But if we are building a
transportation system to serve people, the Spadina Expressway is a good place to stop" (quoted
in Sewell, 1993). This statement has to be considered against the backdrop of the Province’s
strong support for suburban development during this period, through the activities of the
Ontario Land Corporation and provincially mediated federal subsidies for water, sewage and
highway infrastructure.

115
socially conservative politics that sought to defend or rationalize those same social

relations and associated middle-class values. Combining these influences, local

environmentalists worked to mobilize citizens to action against air and water pollution,

the damaging of significant local ecosystems, and the proliferation of suburban

development on the urban fringe. In their opposition to the Red Hill Expressway, these

groups cast doubt on the privileged role of the car in urban transportation and advocated

public transit alternatives, while some conceded that further road expansion might be

necessary in less ecologically vital areas (Hamilton Spectator, July 3, 1973).

While City Council’s commitment to protecting the valley received substantial public

support at this time (Hamilton Spectator, January 12, 1976), the pressure for councillors

to reconsider was building from multiple directions. Many politicians, city staff,

developers and local citizens were pushing for a new highway route, citing growing

traffic congestion in the east-end and the projected increases in population that would be

generated by the new developments now “held up” by Council’s failure to specify a

route (Hamilton Spectator, April 14, 1975). However, all of the alternative routes

appeared problematic for the city due to the costs of land expropriation, road expansions

and/or the political resistance posed by local residents and businesses. Fruitland Road

was considered too far east and too costly, Kenilworth too heavily lined with

commercial and residential development, and Highway 20 too contentious due to the

level of opposition from local residents and politicians. This pressure was compounded

by the Province’s refusal to provide the promised funding for land acquisition costs

along the Mountain Highway until a north-south link was specified (Hamilton

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Spectator, April 17, 1975) and the growing chorus of protest from those landowners

along the route whose properties had been “frozen” (Hamilton Spectator, September 11,

1975).

Another layer of complexity had been added by the creation of the Regional

Municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth (hereafter referred to as the Region), one of a

number of two-tiered regional municipalities created by the provincial government in

1974 (Burghardt 1987). Many regarded this as a retreat from the government’s earlier

commitment to regional planning and governance (Magnusson 1994; Frisken 2001).

The Regional Municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth quickly became a new political site

of contestation over the highway. Provincial staff urged the Region to consider the

Mountain-Red Hill roadways as part of a future regional road system (cf. internal

memo, dated May 2, 1974, and cited in Jeffery, Ball and Henderson 1985: 218). The

Regional Council had previously resolved to exclude the valley route but members of

the Regional staff soon began advocating that it be considered in future transportation

studies.15 The Province continued to make this same demand but the majority of

Hamilton’s City Council continued to oppose them (Hamilton Spectator, January 21,

1976), culminating in the province’s ultimatum that the City either study the Red Hill

Creek access or face the annulment of the funding agreement with the Province,

15
In September, 1975, the Region’s planning committee, under the direction of Stoney Creek
mayor Gordon Dean, tabled a resolution urging the province to reject city council’s request to
remove the Red Hill route from the city’s Official Plan but this resolution was narrowly
defeated (Hamilton Spectator, September 17, 1975).

117
resulting in the loss of approximately $2 million for both the north-south and east-west

roadways, 25% of the estimated cost (Hamilton Spectator, March 18, 1976).

Pavers and Savers: Public Mobilization and Political Narratives

By this time, coalitions on both sides of the conflict were becoming more organized,

with clear lines of argument and common narratives that framed the issues, actors and

desired outcomes. Expressway proponents articulated a growth and progress narrative

that resonated with many of the elements of the dominant industrial imaginary. The

highway was presented as a symbol of progress and a practical means of both

supporting industrial development and increasing the efficiency of traffic flows, while

the valley was presented as wasted and degraded space requiring the human

intervention of development to be improved. This narrative relied upon three central

political frames:

1) Urban Growth: Economic and population growth are represented as universally

beneficial, driven by competition for private sector development, and based

upon the transformation of “wild” or “useless” nature into productive resources

for the creation of wealth.

2) Freedom and Prosperity: Associated with individual prosperity, freedom of

(auto)mobility, reduced traffic congestion, and the safety and security of

residential neighbourhoods.

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 3) Representative Democracy: According to which, democratic citizenship

essentially involves the periodic election of political representatives and optional

engagement in consultation processes. Good governance involves decision-

making that provides room for consultation but respects the will of the majority,

and that is free from the influence of “political bias” or “special interests”

opposing progress and development. The municipality is seen, first and

foremost, as a level of the state that focuses on the shared public interest of

economic development by assisting the efforts of the private sector.

Ideologically, this triple narrative drew upon liberal notions of individual freedom,

societal progress, political pluralism and the alleged privileging of general interests over

the particular. More conservative ideological elements are also evident in the emphasis

on the power of market forces as “natural laws” that provide the basis for social order,

the protection of suburban neighbourhoods and lifestyles, and the valorization of change

as steady, predictable growth that builds on previous traditions and strengths. While the

ideological currents of this narrative can be traced back through the history of Hamilton

politics, most notably to the growth machines and railroad politics of the nineteenth

century, it is clear that by the early 1970s, this storyline had already responded to the

rise of environmentalism by harkening back to earlier visions of infrastructure as a

synthesis of modern urbanism and nature, presenting the highway as a solution to traffic

congestion and ecological degradation rather than a cause. These arguments could rely

119
in part on Hamilton’s history of the productive transformation of nature, still

dramatically symbolized by the industrial skyline and the roadways cut into the

escarpment. Finally, as economic conditions became more precarious, great force would

be derived from reference to the transformation or improvement of nature as a means of

reclaiming Hamilton’s status as a “successful” or “world class” city.

During this same period, environmentalist groups alternatively articulated a

conservation ecology narrative that drew upon the mixture of political influences

mentioned above, including the critique of productivism and consumerism presented by

the rise of “New Left” social movements, popular interpretations of ecological science,

and conservation and preservation movements, both urban and wilderness based. The

valley was represented as a both a refuge of nature and “wilderness” within an

increasingly urban area and as a symbol of a new city that would better integrate nature

with urbanization by preserving natural areas and shifting to post-Fordist forms of

economic development that were less polluting and less reliant upon factories, roadways

and automobiles. This narrative also utilized three basic political frames:

1) Urban Conservation: Suggesting a new approach to economic development and

societal progress that protects significant ecological areas and transition towards

industries, urban forms and transportation modes that reduce ecological damage.

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 2) Health and Urban Nature: Emphasizing the importance of nature for human and

non-human health on a citywide scale, access to natural areas, more compact

urban development, and the reduction of air and water pollution.

3) Participatory Democracy: According to which, democratic citizenship involves

active engagement in municipal politics and decision-making processes, as well

as participation in the electoral process. Good governance involves decision-

making that provides room for public participation and democratic deliberation

of major planning issues. The municipality is seen, first and foremost, as the

level of the state at which citizens can and should participate most directly in

governance.

These opposing and overlapping narratives gradually became more prominent within

the local media, with articles, letters and editorials debating the future of urban

transportation and development in the city. Debate at city hall intensified as Jack

MacDonald replaced Mayor Victor Copps in the 1976 election, presenting himself as a

pro-business leader who would help Hamilton regain its status as “the Ambitious City”

through large-scale development projects such as the Red Hill Creek Expressway, which

he described as “a fact of life” (Hamilton Spectator, December 3, 1976). In response to

environmental critics, MacDonald, the Chamber of Commerce and others insisted that

the roadway could be designed to minimize its environmental impact on the valley

(Hamilton Spectator, July 9, 1975). The planners and engineers of the Technical

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Advisory Committee echoed this early modernist vision of the “parkway” as a means of

interacting with and appreciating nature (Hamilton Spectator, October 22, 1975) and

continued to pressure the Council. On April 20, 1976, the Committee proposed to turn

both highway projects over to the Region for a Regional Freeway Study in cooperation

with the provincial Ministry of Transportation and Communications.

This study was completed by July 25, 1977, and the following day City Council

resolved to allow consideration of “all reasonable alternatives to the north-south

freeway,” including the Red Hill valley. As Michael Jeffrey observes, “the exact reasons

for this abrupt change in position remain unclear to this day,” (Jeffrey, Ball and

Henderson 1985: 221) but it is clear that enormous political pressures were placed on

councillors by planning and engineering staff from multiple levels of government, in

addition to the sustained lobbying efforts of business associations, developers and

citizens. The municipal and provincial planners and engineers that composed the

Technical Advisory Committee appear to have played a particularly prominent role,

continually promoting the valley route despite the opposition from the City and

Regional Councils. Many of these same planners and engineers were selected to serve

on the working committee for a new Regional Freeway Study, along with

representatives from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, the

Conservation Authority, the Niagara Escarpment Commission and DelCan consultants

(De Leuw Cather Canada Ltd). DelCan was the same consultation group that had been

involved in producing previous reports recommending the Red Hill route in 1963 and

1967. Charges of bias were also levelled against the steering committee for “stacking

122
the deck” with politicians who were predisposed to the valley route and likely to

emphasize economic over environmental factors (Hamilton Spectator, November 9,

1977).

Local citizens opposed to the Red Hill route began to escalate their efforts, urged by

municipal and provincial politicians who warned that more vocal and effective

resistance, including the use of independent studies and experts, would be needed to

counter the efforts of “big money” promoting the road and the valley as the only viable

route (Hamilton Spectator, October 13, 1977). Save the Valley was formed in May 1979

by east-end residents and other citizens active in local environment groups. With a core

of roughly forty people and many hundreds of supporters, Save the Valley accompanied

lobbying tactics with a stronger focus on public education and debate that included

public forums, outdoor rallies and letter writing campaigns. The group quickly became

the strongest voice of resistance to the project and soon received endorsements from

politicians such as then Toronto Mayor John Sewell (Hamilton Spectator, June 22,

1979) and prominent environmental non-governmental organizations such as Pollution

Probe, Coalition on the Niagara Escarpment and the Federation of Ontario Naturalists.

While some advocated other routes for a north-south link, many activists and

politicians questioned whether any roadway was needed and argued that public transit

would be a more effective and less damaging means of addressing the problem of traffic

congestion. Emphasis was placed on the importance of reducing automobile use and

highway construction due to increasing air pollution, the loss of valuable land such as

the valley, and the phenomenon of induced traffic, whereby new roadway capacity

123
provides short-term relief of congestion but leads to long-term increases in traffic

levels.16 Criticism was levelled against city planners for allowing new development to

occur before considering the transportation required to support it and for privileging the

automobile over other transportation modes (Hamilton Spectator, February 11, 1978).

Reflecting the widespread loss of faith in modernist planning and established political

authorities that had occurred throughout the 1960s and 70s (Wainwright 1994), critics

also denounced the decision-making process as one that excluded meaningful

participation from citizens and privileged business interests over all others (Hamilton

Spectator, June 18, 1979).

Such arguments were given credence by the Region’s announcement of six possible

routes for the north-south link of the highway – every one of which included at least a

portion of the road running through the Red Hill Valley (Hamilton Spectator, May 5,

1979). It was explained that the steering committee had selected these routes from an

original list of fifteen “for a variety of reasons including technical and financial

feasibility, environmental concerns and the level of disruption to area residents” (ibid,

May 16, 1979). Open houses were held to solicit public input on these six routes, while

activist groups mobilized to shape the debate by holding public meetings, conducting

public opinion polls and circulating petitions. These groups included the Centennial

Ratepayers Association, who voiced their opposition to the two routes that still involved

16
The phenomenon of induced traffic is now well documented by quantitative analyses (cf.
DeCorla-Souza 2000; Cervero 2002; Ewing and Lichtenstein 2002). As Ewing and Lichtenstein
note, the related phenomena of induced development has received considerably less academic
attention, due in part to the data requirements and complexity of the models needed for a
quantitative analysis, but the literature is growing.

124
portions of Highway 20 by appealing to the health and safety risks of traffic congestion

in the area, the lowering of property values accompanying the highway, the alleged

prioritization of human needs over those of wildlife, and alleged improvements in

aesthetics and accessibility that would be made to the valley by construction of the

highway (ibid, June 8, 1979).

These arguments were tied into the representation of the valley as a wasteland. Many

proponents of the Red Hill route described the valley as a dirty and polluted place, filled

with refuse and the smell of sewage – in the words of one letter writer, it was a place

“infested with snakes and rats, it’s nothing but garbage land” (Hamilton Spectator, July

11, 1979). Implicitly, such descriptions referred to the northern end of the valley, where

overflowing storm sewers and public dumping had indeed contributed to pollution of

the creek and surrounding marshland. These conditions were usually presented as

evidence of the valley’s degraded or dangerous quality and the lack of widespread

appreciation for this area, rather than being attributed to neglect on the part of the

municipal government. The highway project, envisioned as a carefully constructed and

aesthetically pleasing “garden way,” was presented as a way “to enhance the area for the

public rather than destroy it” (ibid, July 9, 1975) by cleaning up the valley and allowing

“more people to enjoy the beauties of the Red Hill Creek area,” albeit from the comfort

of their automobiles (ibid, June 16, 1979).

In contrast, others described the valley as a natural oasis in a heavily urbanized area.

Alderman Brian Hinkley, then of the most vocal critics of the Red Hill route, described

the valley as “the last remaining natural area of woods and fields and quiet that exists in

125
the Hamilton community” (quoted in Hamilton Spectator, December 27, 1978). These

representations tended to emphasize the “natural” and even “wilderness” qualities of the

valley and the need to conserve such increasingly scarce spaces within an urban

environment, rather than the rich history of human usage of the valley described earlier.

Talk of “trade offs” between “the environment” and economic growth was countered by

visions of the valley as an irreplaceable asset of steadily increasing value that should not

be sacrificed for “immediate needs” (ibid, July 14, 1979). This value was to be

measured in terms of recreation and respite from the urban environment, human health

and the tree-filled valley’s role as “Hamilton’s lungs”, and its ability to foster

appreciation and respect for nature (Figure 3.4).

Figure 3.4: Save the Valley lawn signs (Hamilton Spectator, July 9, 1979)

126
 These qualitative descriptions were given more quantitative support by the

Conservation Authority’s designation of the valley as one of twenty six

“environmentally significant areas” in the Hamilton region and a subsequent report to

the Regional steering committee which argued that the proposed highway would

effectively “destroy” the valley by increasing flood levels and erosion, polluting air,

water and soil, and removing wildlife habitat, including several rare species (June 8,

1979). In this same report, the Conservation Authority protested the committee’s

selection of a route that had been previously rejected by City Council and reminded the

committee that the city, the Conservation Authority, and the Niagara Escarpment

Commission “must give their approval before construction can proceed” (Hamilton

Spectator, June 8, 1979).

Nevertheless, the Region soon announced that “Alternative Route 2” had been

selected as the best route for the roadways – a four-lane arterial road running east-west

across the Mountain and a six-lane freeway running through the valley to the provincial

Queen Elizabeth highway.17 Members of the steering committee later claimed that the

Region’s Chair, Anne Jones, had asked them to present only a single alternative route to

Regional Council (Hamilton Spectator, August 29, 1979). Charges of “back room

politics” were levelled by city councillors who claimed that the Region had failed to

provide them with up-to-date information (ibid, June 29, 1979), including the timing of

steering committee meetings (Mountain News, September 26, 1979). According to

17
Apparently without irony, the Hamilton Spectator announced the selection of Alternative 2,
from a list of six routes that all included the Red Hill Valley, with the headline “Route – a
compromise solution” (July 7, 1979).

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Alderman Brian Hinkley, a great deal of decision-making took place "in the

background... I've found there are just a few people on both councils who hold the reins

of power" (Hamilton Spectator, September 15, 1979).

Over three hundred people attended the Regional Council meeting on July 18, 1979.

Many demonstrated outside city hall, with opponents of the Red Hill route

outnumbering those in favour two to one (Figure 3.5). Inside, 25 of the 38 public

deputations to Council were in opposition. In addition to Save the Valley, which

submitted a petition of 9400 signatures, groups speaking against the highway included

east-end neighbourhood associations, the Hamilton and Region Conservation Authority,

the Federation of Environmental Groups, the McQuesten Community Association,

Hamilton Labour Council, Coalition on the Niagara Escarpment, and representatives of

the New Democratic and Liberal parties. Those in favour of the highway included the

Hamilton Chamber of Commerce, Hamilton Homebuilders Association, Hamilton

Trucking Association, the Metropolitan Hamilton Real Estate Board, Carma

Developments, Di Cenzo Construction, Sunshine Homes Ltd., and a number of local

ratepayers groups (Hamilton Spectator, July 19, 1979).

Figure 3.5: Savers and Pavers outside City Hall (Hamilton Spectator, July 19,

1979)

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 Like much of the public debate in the preceding months, many of the presentations

focused on issues of economic growth, the nature and location of future development,

and the value of the highway as an economic stimulus. Critics of the project pointed to

studies that predicted more dramatic growth in the service sector rather than the

industrial sector, with most of these jobs more likely to be located in the downtown core

of the city rather than the escarpment, waterfront, and east-end regions linked together

by the proposed expressway (Hamilton Spectator, February 11, 1978). These

predictions appeared to cast doubt on the prominent argument that the highway was

vital to economic growth in the region, as did statements from Stelco and Dofasco, the

city’s largest steel companies, that the highway “will perhaps enhance the attractiveness

of the region for new industry” but “would be of little direct benefit” to them as the

129
small proportion of their shipping done by truck made use of the nearby Skyway Bridge

and Queen Elizabeth Way (Hamilton Spectator, July 9, 1979).

Pointing to the predominance of real estate, construction and trucking companies

supporting the road, opponents argued that the project would only benefit the

development industry (ibid). Criticizing Hamilton’s legacy of expensive and

controversial development projects, they called for a more cautious approach to

economic development that would focus on supporting existing industries, encourage a

more balanced mix of public transit and roadways, and allow for the preservation of

parkland. This shift was frequently characterized as a turn away from the pursuit of

“growth at any cost” and “reckless economic expansion” towards an emphasis on

“quality of life” for present and future generations, suggesting but not articulating the

more radical critiques of capitalism and modernity that were being expressed by the

resurgent New Left movements of the time. In the effort to undermine the “common

sense” identification of economic growth with progress and prosperity, John Ellis and

other supporters of Save the Valley were fond of quoting Arthur Cordell’s statement that

“growth for growth’s sake is the philosophy of a cancer cell” (Hamilton Spectator, July

14, 1979).

For proponents of the road, the imminent crisis was primarily an economic one, with

a clear choice to be made: build the highway to sustain economic growth or face

“stagnation and lost jobs”. Just as the arguments of local environmentalists were given

support by wider critiques of modernist urban planning and dire warnings of resource

depletion and environmental crisis, arguments in favour of the project were bolstered by

130
fears of economic decline emanating from political and financial instability during the

early 1970s. During this period, the crisis of “stagflation” (stagnant economic growth,

coupled with the inflation of prices and widespread unemployment) was compounded

by widespread urban unrest and the demands of increasingly well-organized groups that

had been marginalized during the Fordist period, including civil-rights, feminist and

student movements (Castells 1983). Combined with the first stirrings of the

decentralization and outsourcing of manufacturing work to smaller firms in the Third

World, these changes increased concern about the future of economic growth and

contributed to a political climate in which business interests began to push more

vigorously for the “roll back” of the constraints on profit presented by labour demands,

taxation and various governmental regulations and social programs (Peck and Tickell

2002).18 Amidst this fear of imminent recession, growing unemployment and rising

property taxes (Hamilton Spectator, August 30, 1979),19 local growth coalitions

presented the Red Hill Creek Expressway as a means of supporting Hamilton’s

manufacturing sector by decreasing commute times, improving transportation

18
Some commentators refer to this period as the “crisis of Fordism” – a gradual but dramatic
shift away from the economic policies, political compromises and institutionalized practices that
facilitated stable economic growth during the post-war period (Amin 1994). This shift is often
attributed to the rising costs of fixed capital (machinery and buildings) and the demands made
by increasingly well-organized workers movements, leading to a loss of productivity and
profitability in the leading capitalist nations and the subsequent trend towards removal of the
regulations and constraints on profit-making imposed by Keynesian economic policies.
19
It is interesting to note that this editorial is titled “Not Just a Freeway”, emphasizing the
anticipated benefits of the road for attracting and retaining industrial and commercial
development. As discussed in chapter 5, planners in the City of Hamilton later promoted the
highway as “more than just a road” in the effort to highlight ecological restoration efforts in the
valley.

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connections to areas of industrial growth such as Nanticoke, facilitating the

development of industrial land on the escarpment, and providing new jobs (Hamilton

Spectator, July 19, 1979).

Following these deputations, City Council prepared to vote on the matter and citizens

continued to mobilize. Members of the provincial Liberal and NDP parties voiced their

opposition and criticized Conservative support for the project (Mountain News, August

22, 1979), while others gathered petitions and conducted polls.20 Just prior to the

Council vote, Save the Valley presented the city with 2000 more signed petitions – later

reaching a total of 13,000 signatures, in contrast to the 1619 signatures presented by

three ratepayers groups the following month (Mountain News, November 7, 1979).

Nevertheless, “Alternative 2” was endorsed by City Council in a narrow vote of 8 to 7

on August 28, 1979. Regional Council gave their final approval the following month.

The dominant narrative of “economic growth vs. environmental recreation” was evoked

in Regional Chair Anne Jones concluding statement: “It’s nice to sit in the sun, but it’s

not nice to sit in the sun hungry” (Hamilton Spectator, September 19, 1979). Editors

from the Hamilton Spectator applauded the decision and declared, "rejecting the Red

Hill proposal would really have amounted to an outright vote of non-confidence in the

entire Hamilton-Wentworth region, its future, survival, growth and industrial

20
A poll of residents of ward 5, where the valley is located, found 63% of respondents were
opposed to a highway through the valley (Hamilton Spectator, September 15, 1979). This poll
was sponsored by the McQuesten Community Association, a group critical of the project. An
earlier poll of 900 residents sponsored by east-end NDP politician Bob MacKenzie found 49.6%
opposed to the valley route, 31.6% in favour, and 18.8% with no opinion (Hamilton Spectator,
May 17, 1979). Curiously, the by-line of this article reads: “Fewer than half of east end
residents surveyed are opposed.”

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development. Council members recognized that and voted - responsibility – in the

interests of the entire region" (September 20, 1979).

In the effort to convince others that the project was essential for both economic

growth and the alleviation of present and future traffic congestion, proponents appealed

to well-established notions of highways as emblems and drivers of “progress” and

“development” – collective goods that benefit all citizens by increasing urban

(auto)mobility. These benefits are spelled out in the Summary Report of the Region’s

Mountain East-West and North-South Corridor Study, which argues that highways

concentrate the movement of traffic on major arteries to protect the integrity

and living amenities within the residential neighbourhoods… make it possible
for families to live in a reasonably dispersed residential environment, and to
seek employment freely within the metropolitan area… (and) promote the
growth and development of the community by improving the movement of
goods and services” (Region of Hamilton-Wentworth 1979: ii).

Here, the increased freedom of mobility for people, goods and services provided by

highway transportation is presented as a means of preserving quality of life, while

contributing to the overall “growth and development of the community.” This, like the

references to “vitality” and “social growth” from the same document, evokes wider

notions of progress while implying that these benefits are either synonymous with or

produced by economic growth.

Logan and Molotch describe this as an appeal to “value free development,”

frequently utilized by growth coalitions to promote economic expansion and realize

financial gains. According to this argument, growth “brings jobs, expands the tax base,

and pays for urban services. City governments are thus wise to do what they can to

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attract investors” (Logan and Molotch 1987: 33). Businesses and visionary

entrepreneurs are characterized as the principal architects of urban development, while

the role of government is presented as facilitating the growth of private investment for

the ostensible benefit of all citizens. Expressway proponent and Alderman Ian Stout

captured this vision of local government with his assertion that highways are built not

for people but “to provide for the needs of industry which in turn provides people with

jobs” (Hamilton Spectator, February 11, 1978). At the same time, planning documents

such as the Regional Corridor Study claim that “the demand for the expansion of

roadway facilities stems directly from the public’s preference for low-density single

family accommodation and the public’s wish for greater freedom of mobility,”

suggesting that government is simply responding to the needs and desires of citizens

rather than those of business (Region of Hamilton Wentworth 1979: i).

Urban development projects are “value-free” in so far as they considered universally

beneficial and therefore apolitical – a matter for objective expert management and the

application of market forces rather than political debate. In this view, the primary role of

the citizen is to elect political representatives. Public participation in decision-making is

limited to the avenues of election, lobbying, and limited consultation, based on a

“pluralist” ideal of liberal democracy in which each citizen is given an equal

opportunity to influence the state (Judge 1995). Engagement in overt political activity

outside these boundaries is frequently described as an affront to “the democratic

process” and “politics” itself is represented as a form of interference in the “natural”

course of development – the pursuit of narrow self-interests against the greater good of

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economic growth, progress and prosperity. We can see these beliefs and values

expressed in editorials and letters from the Hamilton Spectator that describe highways

as “beneficial to the total community” and urge local politicians to get the job done with

“action, not more talk” (Hamilton Spectator, October 15, 1977). This can be understood

as a strategy of “depoliticization” (Sundberg 1998) or “black-boxing” (Callon and

Latour 1981; Hajer 1995) that presents particular issues and relationships as natural,

essential and/or unalterable in the effort to prevent them from being considered as

legitimate objects of debate.21

Proponents framed the highway as a literal road into the future, universally beneficial

and vital to the very survival of the entire community. Drawing upon the well-

established industrial imaginary outlined in the previous chapter, they struggled to shape

this collective sense of community by evoking sentiments of local pride in the past

successes of “the Ambitious City”; the need to work together to compete against other

industries, cities and countries; and celebration of the “energy, strength and

commitment” of hard-working Hamiltonians and their visionary leaders, those “men

with ambition and faith in the future to get things going” (C.J. Munro quoted in

Hamilton Spectator, June 16, 1979). In contrast, critics of the highway were often

represented as negative and reactionary “anti-growth” activists more concerned about

21
As discussed in the following chapter, this discursive tactic of representing some issues and
social relations as natural and unalterable was by no means confined to the “growth and
progress” political narrative. As Hajer (1995: 272) notes, “to become symbolically effective and
politically manageable one almost by necessity will have to sacrifice some relevant
relationships” in the formation of persuasive political narratives.

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the protection of greenspace than the long-term prosperity of the city (Hamilton

Spectator, July 19, 1979).

Nevertheless, the rise of environmentalism and other social movements of the 1960s

and 70s, including civil rights, feminist and peace movements, had already begun to

dramatically alter the political discourses surrounding urban development, making it

increasingly difficult to dismiss concerns about the ecological impacts and social

inequities of development. As a result, the dominant narrative of growth,

competitiveness and value-free development was forced to begin addressing

environmentalist critiques by associating the highway with the reduction of traffic

congestion (implying a reduction in air pollution) and the rehabilitation of an allegedly

polluted and degraded space. Similarly, growing scepticism towards traditional political

authorities and the faith in expertise that had supported Fordist urbanization made it

increasingly difficult to present urban planning and development as an objective and

politically neutral enterprise. The Region’s Corridor Study report, for example,

concedes “the planning and design of transportation systems is as much a political

process as it is a technical one” but goes on to explain that this process involves

“weighing the trade-offs between the benefits to the community as a whole and the

disbenefits (sic) to the individuals directly affected by implementation” (1979: ii; italics

in original). A utilitarian logic is used to suggest that the negative impacts of roadways

on “families, neighbourhoods, businesses, other institutions… the natural environment,

open space and recreational areas” in some areas must be measured against the benefits

of increased mobility for all (ibid).

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 Particularly notable in these planning documents is the sharp distinction that is made

between “the natural environment” and the “cultural environment.” Nature is associated

with “quality of life,” “natural open space” and recreational enjoyment – amenities

whose preservation must be balanced with other goals, the most important of which is

said to be sustaining economic growth. From this perspective, the largely negative

environmental impacts of urban development can and should be considered separately

from the largely positive social impacts. Urban planning is charged with the task of

helping to strike the right balance, maximizing social and economic well-being while

minimizing the environmental costs. Nature serves an ideological function here in so far

as the (economic) development of cities is conceived as something that acts upon and

utilizes a separate “natural environment” and the existing social relations that make this

dynamic possible are themselves considered “natural” – that is to say, fixed, timeless

and necessary (Smith 1984).

This division between society and nature is also evident in the place-based frames

and narratives utilized by opponents of the expressway. Drawing upon established

discourses of nature conservation, many local environmentalists represented the Red

Hill valley as a natural oasis in the midst of urban chaos, emphasizing its value for

human health and recreation, and the political, moral and/or spiritual value of

preserving nature. But such political frames often privilege the identification of nature

with “wilderness” – places that are external to society and outside of human history. In

so doing, other histories of human use, particularly those of indigenous peoples, are too

easily neglected or rendered invisible (Braun 2002). When nature is defined as a realm

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of being separate from human influence, that can nevertheless be comprehensively

understood through the lens of science, it is easy to assume that the concerns of

environmentalism are based on facts and values that are universally true and that the

environmentalist can speak on behalf of the collective interests of human and non-

human beings (Forsyth 2003). Often, too little attention is paid to the ways in which our

experiences and understandings of “nature” and “environment” are mediated by

differences of class, race, gender, sexuality, age and ability, among others (Di Chiro

1995). The interconnections between ecological degradation, socio-economic disparity,

and the uneven power relationships supported by modern social, political and economic

institutions remained undeveloped within the early narratives of resistance articulated

by opponents of the Red Hill Creek Expressway but activists would gradually be forced

to understand these linkages, developing a more complex understanding of urban

environmental politics in the process.

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