While the effort to help out local businesses is at least a worthy one (and more than the local Business Improvement Area has done), its focus is, unfortunately, severely lacking.
The most critical component of any potential revitalization of 'the Lakeshore' has been completely ignored.
Healthy communities are built upon strong local employment levels - first and foremost. That is exactly how our communities of the Lakeshore, primarily the Town of New Toronto, Town of Mimico and Village of Long Branch, developed and grew into highly successful communities.
The local economic impact of the devastating loss of well-paying jobs in our area can never be reversed by efforts such as that described in the article.
Someone who has recently moved into the community, and who really knows nothing about it, is unlikely to be able to comprehend these factors - simply because they lack the first-hand experience and knowledge gained by living here for most of their lives.
Completely ignoring the history of how our Lakeshore communities were built into thriving neighbourhoods and trying to replace that with 'new' ideas which never work out will not result in any meaningful 'revitalization'. Those of us who are life-long residents have heard this all before.
We were first all told how Daniels' Lakeshore Village development was going to revitalize New Toronto. Instead, the opposite happened.
The same was promoted with new development in Mimico and on the motel strip. Instead, that has turned into a total disaster. No economic benefits to local communities - and serious detrimental effects on local traffic and air pollution have been the result.
The root cause of the symptoms shown by the local business climate has been the loss of local employment, which devastated area commercial businesses - that in turn hurt our communities. When New Toronto and surrounding communities had reasonable levels of employment, local restaurants never had a problem with lack of business - nor did other stores. And there wasn't a problem with restaurants turning into 'boozecans' to survive. Just ask the longest-established business owners who know the way things actually were.
It is evident that the significant increase in local population levels and the surge in condo construction over the past two decades have been a dismal failure in our communities because no positive economic impact has resulted from them. More of the same won't improve the situation.
Opportunities for the re-establishment of meaningful employment levels in the Lakeshore do exist. We cannot afford to squander those opportunities. To do so would doom the Lakeshore's future to a substandard level compared to its successful past.
The time is long overdue for Lakeshore-area politicians to start listening to those who actually know our communities - namely those who have lived here since at least the mid-1980s and, particularly, those who have lived their entire lives here. That is where the answers for local problems are most likely to be found - not from outsiders. The Lakeshore will not progress until that fact is taken seriously and acted on.
Paul Chomik