Steelcity Living: Hamilton, Stelco and the Post-industrial City

Brownfield sites in Canada play an essential role in the future development of post-industrial cities. Fundamentally unproductive, these spaces are of no benefit to the city’s recovery and therefore must be adapted for a new use. U.S. Steel Canada (Stelco) has defined Hamilton’s economy and cultural identity as a blue collar city for more than a century. Now under bankruptcy protection and seeking potential buyers, concerns of the city’s capacity to exist as an industrial based economy have increased. The growing inventory of brownfields and the demand for affordable housing in Hamilton are influential factors in its season of heightened urban renewal.Steelcity Living seeks to set a precedent for development and affordable housing enriched by the remediation and preservation of Stelco’s industrial ruins and the significance of Hamilton’s cultural past.