AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
It's interesting that universities have entered this discussion. I think most reasonable people would agree that the size and quality of Boston's universities vastly outstrips that of Toronto's, and that the Boston's universities and research institutes have been a powerful driver of that city's sustainable competitive advantage and prosperity. Former NYC Mayor Bloomberg got it when he created a city-supported global competition to create a new STEM university in that city. Since we have limited dollars to invest, I wish we would think about spending them on something that would create long-term economic value as part of a serious reflection on how this city is going to make its way in the world. I've seen a number of "Hey, we're world class!" arguments in favour of throwing a one month Olympic party, and some arguments to the effect we could leverage the games to get higher levels of government to pay for infrastructure like a new expressway into downtown, but I haven't seen much evidence to suggest that hosting the games will give us much of a return on the massive investment they would entail. If we're going to use a mega project to try to mobilize federal and provincial funding and break our Council-created inability to ever do anything right, we should give some thought to selecting the right project.
It's not just a matter of throwing public money at the problem - which will likely go into expanding enrollment/reducing tuition and not improving quality - as noted, neither Harvard nor MIT are publicly funded. Besides, we already have a STEM university - UOIT.
As to Bloomberg/NYC - they have not been hesitant in spending public funds for megaprojects, then and now. There is a reason why they also went for the Olympics in 2012. It's not an "either/or" - it's both - and NYC is arguably a city that doesn't need to increase their profile.
AoD
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