Trenton, Ontario (population ~17 000) is located on the Bay of Quinte at the mouth of the Trent River, southern Ontario. it's the entrance to the Trent-Severn waterway which heads northwest through Rice Lake, Peterborough and carries on to Georgian Bay. There are 3 exits off highway 401 to Trenton: 1) County Road 4 which is Glen Miller Road leading north to Frankford and on to Stirling, or Sidney Street which leads south on route to CFB Trenton or downtown Trenton; 2) County Road 33 which leads north to Batawa and Frankford or south to downtown Trenton, on to Consecon and eventually Picton in Prince Edward County; 3) County Road 40 which leads north to Wooler or south to highway 2. The town businesses are largely build along highway 2 which leads west to Brighton and east to Belleville.
Signs along highway 401 also advertise the Bay of Quinte as a fishing destination, despite Trenton being historically and currently used by heavy riverside industry including a tannery, a munitions factory, machining and railways, a pulp and paper mill and a creosote factory. Historical contamination and continuing pollution is a major concern, in particular phosphate reflux in bottom sediments that choke the Bay of Quinte with weeds. Much of the downtown waterfront is formed using old asphalt and chunks of concrete, including Centennial Park which is formed over the old town dump. The new town dump now forms a mountain larger than Mount Pelion close to the river just upstream from Domtar. Trenton is like many towns in southern Ontario, built at a time when rivers were treated as sewers and there was a general lack of concern about care for Nature or public access to spaces critical to health and well being.
CFB Astra is the largest employer via work contracts and Trenton is home to a number of factories. The economy of Trenton (and Hastings County in general) is largely based on farming and forestry, but at present there are not enough trees left to build furniture (find this out for yourself at Quinn's sawmill; many southern Ontario trees such as ash are going extinct due to negligence of replanting). The riverfront and bay are devastated ecosystems incapable of supporting the necessary wild species critical to human survival. A significant effort to reclaim critical waterfront for trails has been set back by consumption of waterfront by big box stores including Independent and Canadian Tire.
Tourists enticed to visit Trenton by glossy brochures will be sorely disappointed. Downtown Trenton is filled with run down, boarded up empty stores that make it look like war-torn Beiruit, low-end pizza chains and dollar stores. The buildings are owned by a handful of people charging rents far beyond what any startup business can afford, essentially saying that downtown Trenton belongs to them not to Trenton residents. In general, Trenton is characterized by vacant lots and empty buildings that are liabilities priced far beyond what they are worth. As soon as land is zoned commercial, speculators seeking income without labour snap it up and hold it ransom against anyone actually wanting to work for a living. As in many Ontario towns, speculators have destroyed the very basis of the economy by making life hell for makers, creators and innovators trying to gain even the slightest foothold in life. City Hall is a major beneficiary behind this unproductive speculation on land, buildings and homes, also writing zoning bylaws that have removed all possible means of self-reliant self-sustenance from Trenton residents. The main purpose of social services has thus become pushing people into the hands of the very companies that are driving the destruction of our lives and families.
Looking at downtown Trenton, it is clear who is doing well. Banks, insurance and City Hall, working in quiet collusion to create a situation of complete small-town economic lock down that has kept this two-block stretch in the same state of sad despair for over four decades with no end in sight. To be clear, many government agencies spend significant public money on economic development, job creation and tourism, systems into which we are forced to pay with no say, and all the evidence suggests they are completely incapable of doing the job of economic development.
A handful of people running City Hall, and a handful of people wanting to own everything in Trenton, together control the lives of 43 000 Quinte West citizens in fine detail giving citizens no say about our lives and future. This is typical of any Ontario town using bylaws invented in 1800s England specifically to seize control of villages and profit from every possibility, bylaws that were simply imported and remain unchanged to this day. Quinte West bylaws specifically state the attitude that all public land and buildings belong to them for their benefit alone, and their practices make it clear that residents have no say. Such bylaws being clearly against Canada's Constitution Act (1982) can be legally ignored by the public and struck down.
The print media in Trenton is completely controlled by corporate giants with insufficient staff to report events. Press releases from City Hall and various government agencies are printed without review and all other points of view are systematically rejected. All places for posting non-government events have been removed, leaving no mechanisms for public communications on the issues critical to our survival and the future of this generation of Quinte kids. The official message, here in Trenton and from government across the country, is that everything's just fine. We know it is not. There's no work in Trenton, nothing to so, all the smart people have left, social life has been shut down and nothing is being done to prevent the coming crisis.
We keep hearing about all the wonderful things government is doing, but have not seen it. The fact is each agency specifically blocks or stymies an essential human need, be it for communication, a place to grow food, a place to start a business or a place to sell from, the result being complete economic and social lockdown with no say and no possibility of making the changes needed to avert the disaster now setting upon our children, An entire generation of Quinte kids is trapped between low wages and high house prices, forced to work in chain stores or factories, will all real alternatives removed or blocked by fines, fees, rules and regulations with no basis in law or reality. The only thing that has changed life in Trenton is the arrival of Internet. Other than that, prices are escalating, the quality of life is declining and the attempts by local government to make things sound great are in sharp contrast with the reality of our lives.
To be clear. It's not that hard to make and sell pizza. But utterly impossible when a vacant lot in a run-down little town starts at a quarter-million. Completely and utterly useless people in government demonstrate complete incompetence in addressing this urgent issue gutting our lives and destroying the economic basis of our town. Add what you want below. We need a new vision for our lives and community, and a wiki has the structure to do that in an organized manner.