Home Sweet Home: Is downtown Kitchener your new Tech Startups Home?

 


As outlined in the reading regarding the revamping of downtown kitchener, “In 2004 the city set up a $110-million fund for an economic-development program financed through a 1.2 per cent property tax hike over a 10-year period. The university used $30-million out of the fund to help build a new pharmacy school in the downtown area. Other money went toward cleaning up industrial sites and transforming warehouses” (Dingman, 2015). Similar to Silicon Valley that “worked at improving education, building the information infrastructure, reducing traffic congestion through telecommuting and improving government operations” (Lee et al., 2000, p. 11) that attracted people to the area. 


Downtown Kitchener is now home to many Tech Startups (ie. D2L), parks (Ie. Victoria Park), transportation centers (ie. GRT busses/train), restaurants (ie. 271 West), entertainment (ie. Goudies Lane) and condos (ie. Condo Culture). 

Questions: After exploring The Downtown Kitchener website below to see all the area has to offer, as a startup tech company would you pick downtown kitchener as a place to start your business? Why or why not? What could the community do to attract more startups? 


 https://www.downtownkitchener.ca/en/food-drink/food-drink.aspx 


References

Dingman, S. (2015). Startup city: high tech fever reshaping Kitchener-Waterloo. The Globe and Mail. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/kitchener-waterloo-startup/article2555 8263/


Reddit. (n.d). Downtown Kitchener. https://www.google.ca/search?q=downtown+kitchener&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjGzaaWlKD3AhURB50JHUdUB_YQ_AUoAnoECAIQBA&biw=1366&bih=657&dpr=1#imgrc=CVxUxIFLBWrYuM


Comments

  1. Benhur G.April 20, 2022 at 2:44 PM

    Hi Julia,

    I think I would definitely be interested in Downtown Kitchener as a location for a tech startup because it has so much to offer. The investments that the city has implemented into its infrastructure to attract people is very large. I know there would be a lot of infrastructure available for startups to move into. Also, as I read in one of the class readings on building ecosystems, a lot of the necessary fundaments are present in downtown Kitchener. The location has a big university close by where startups can find skilled workers every year. It is also in a region that has close access to global markets through a big city like Toronto.

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