London's failed socialist economy
The irony of the location of the Job Fair did not escape my attention. It was held in East London. Once the industrial engine that helped drive the London economy for many decades it is now rusting out. Outside employers looking for workers held a Job Fair just a block away from the closed McCormick and Kellogg factories that have been empty for years. Just these two factories once employed hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people at a time, and both operated successfully for many decades. The last of many and various types of manufactures that once clustered in the area since the early 1900s. (Dominon Office & Store Fitting, Middlesex Mills, McCormick's, Kellogg’s, EMCO, Ruggles, Kelvinator, Supersilk, Hunts Mill, Club House Foods, Coca Cola).
Some people, including so-called economists, argue the economy has changed, and this is why manufacturing has declined in the province of Ontario. They use phrases like, “shifting economy”. Things have shifted, but not much in manufacturing. People still need the basics of food and clothing, and the luxuries of computer devices to be produced. Mass production enables more people to obtain more of the things they want, and in so doing, provides jobs for thousands of workers. It has been the political situation that has gone away from capitalism and into socialism that has mostly caused the profound decline in manufacturing jobs in the province of Ontario and the City of London.
Capitalism includes:
Private Property
Profit Motive
Freedom of Contract
Competition
Free Enterprise
No one is raising private money to restore and renovate the vacant factories so that they may be attractive to new manufacturers who will bring jobs. They are not finding ways to attract new business to East London. The City Of London is not lowering property taxes, eliminating over regulation, and offering these incentives for new owners to restore and renovate the vacant (many historic) buildings in London. The City is concerned with increasing taxes, increasing regulation, and spending hundreds of millions of tax dollars, probably one billion dollars, on a Communist social engineering Bus Rapid Transit scheme.
The financial records show that during the First World War London’s prosperity remained unbroken.
In 1922, with a population of 60,000 people, London ranked 6th in manufacturing output in all of Canada.
One London factory in 1922 produced more than all of London’s industry in 1871.
The City of London established the Town Planning Commission in 1922.
“Report On Town Planning Survey Of The City Of London” by Town Planning Consultant, Thomas Adams was completed April - May 1922. Main considerations for attracting business of 158 manufactures and 83 wholesale distributors surveyed were:
Labour facilities
More disposition of city to appreciate industry
Room for expansion
Railway facilities
Power supply
After her death in 1934, the City of London challenged Elsie Perrin Williams' Last Will And Testament in Provincial Court and succeeded in robbing her $1, 000,000 trust fund to spend on City projects.
The London Street Railway (L.S.R.) began on January 23, 1875, under an agreement with the City of London, and while the L.S.R. was privately owned, the L.S.R. fell under the complete oppressive control of the City.
In 1940, the City of London abolished street cars, and an all bus system was established. In 1941, the City of London removed street car tracks along Richmond Street, Dundas Street, and Oxford Street.
In the 1960s and the 1970s, city planning increased considerably.
At least three manufactures did not come to London in 1962 apparently because of City Hall red tape.
In 1974, City Council approved the plan for a bus mall on Dundas Street. Dundas Street from Adelaide Street to Elizabeth Street was closed to car traffic that was diverted to King Street and Queens Avenue. This road closure destroyed the economy of this area within a couple of years. The disastrous busway that the City spent hundreds of thousands of dollars constructing was removed in a few years, but the area's economy never fully recovered. Phase I of the London Urban Transportation Study published in 1974 had recommended that the Dundas Street busway plan be extended from downtown to Quebec Street.
Since its last failed attempts at this scheme in 1980 and 2008, the City in 2018 has succeeded in forcing thorough its Dundas Street "Flex Street" that is only a few blocks from the almost identical busway mall fiasco location of 1974.
The lack of adequate sewer facilities was given as an obstruction to industry coming to London in 1978.
In 1999, 45% of London's sewers were 30 to 50 years old, 18% were 50 to 80 years old, and 8% were over 80 years old.
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