Windsor Goes Orange

[Canadian Visitor]

I wonder if the fact that Canadian banks avoided the easy-money policies that created the financial disaster in the US allowed for the ability/confidence to finance this boom.

The differences in banking certainly didn't hurt; though there are a variety of other issues at play.

Its not as if Canadian banks don't carry risks, particularly in what is an over-heated market here in now, in Toronto, and likewise Vancouver on the west coast.

But, Canadian banks have had to maintain somewhat higher capital ratios; are just a bit more conservative by nature, in regulation the government flirted with allowing 40-year amortization here but changed its mind quickly. That said, I don't think that in its own right, is a key factor.

But to Davewindsor's point, why is there comparatively so little construction activity in Windsor?

As I have heard Toronto has benefited from the center of Canadian finance moving from Montreal to TO. Windsor is like Detroit, at the whims of manufacturing and therefore in the same cycle of stagnation.

Toronto has industry, a fair bit for a big city, though much less proportionately than a place like Windsor. It is the big financial city, of course, for Canada, but also as a capital city and the most populous, the home of 'big medicine', 'big academia', a large number of corporate head offices and so on.

But for all that, all of which plays a role, the biggest thing going on here is the explosion of population, about 70,000 per year in the city proper, but about 200,000 per year in the Greater Toronto Area.

That fuels a construction boom to service all those folks w/home and retail and transportation etc.

In turn alot of the 'blue collar' workforce is hired for construction jobs; while the money they generate throw's off white-collar jobs.

The immigration boom is self-fulfilling in that Toronto now has one of the largest mandarin-speaking populations outside China, one of the largest hindi-speaking populations outside India etc. etc.

That, along with a very accepting culture that has long had Sikh police where turbans and where the typical white person knows what a banh-mi sandwich is makes us an attractive destination.

Of course, there lots of problems here, traffic among them; along w/soaring real estate prices; $500,000 will buy you a 640sq ft condo, or a house in the distant burbs. Anything nice and well located starts at 650k.

But still, good problems to have, on the whole.

Windsor is/was more industrial, its aging more, and alot of its 'hub' infrastructure [[international flights, specialized healthcare) is found on the U.S. side of the border.

Still, like Detroit, if well-managed, I think it has a bright future. I think the move to create the downtown campus for the University will spur some new vitality in the core, and a new mega-hospital should put most elite medical services right in Windsor proper; provided it does get better rail links to London and Toronto, it should recover nicely over time; it will also benefit from any recovery in Detroit.