Stadium Plan Detractors Speak Up

That same douche bag published something similar in the Inqy last week. I hope his kids grow up to be stadium architects.

 

I have never been to Collinsville but one of the things that a stadium or development in cities such as Chester, Camden or East St. Louis (which I noticed was never considered for a stadium near St. Louis) is that it gives these places a chance to be seen as something other than a place that leads the local news program for the latest drive by shooting that has happened there. These places are real cities with hard working, good hearted people and not some caged in mosh pit of evil from a John Carpenter movie. Building a Stadium, Concert venue, Casino, amusement park or whatever allows scared visitors to see this and if the City government can use the tax, parking and other revenues wisely to improve the public areas and stop local corruption then the possibilities could be endless especially if the location is good, which Chester most definitely has.
If the Rivertown development makes public transportation accessible to Washington, Philly and New York and enables working class people to remain in the area if it booms, Chester may become the New Haven, Bridgeport or even a Greenwich on the southern end of the Northeastern Corridor instead of a drain on the state and counties funds.
I know there a lot of if and buts in this rant but if you can't be optimistic why develop at all?

 

Here's another from today's INQ.

 

Honestly, they make a lot of sense in that arguing against public funding for sports stadiums. Most of the monetary income from a stadium doesn't go towards the city itself, but instead the owners group. But as economists, they're failing to really grasp the big picture.

The stadium funding is only part of the revitalization procedure. More than $400,000,000 is going into stimulating a historically depressed economic region. A part of that funding is going to be spent on a stadium, but most is going to be spent constructing a pleasing harbor area in an attempt to draw visitors from outside regions. This waterfront redevelopment has been quite successful in stimulating very positive economic growth in other cities (Ala Baltimore and Wilmington). So what does waterfront development have to do with a sports stadium, one might ask?

Building a new entertainment zone with this redevelopment is crucial, in my opinion, because it encourages two things: Traffic to the region and visibility to the new development. The most important hurdle in the economic stimulus of an underdeveloped region is the fight for public opinion. A new area of entertainment that would draw large amounts of foot traffic (Up to 18,000 people every other weekend during the all important summer for outdoor travel destinations, at the bare minimum) that would otherwise not be interested in transfering their hard earned dollars to the region is a very big positive. Further, having a visually inspiring stadium at a major traffic flow point is the most effective billboard one could build - It reminds commuters throughout the region that the waterfront has changed for the better, and it serves as the jewel in the crown of redevelopment by acting as a visual aid.

If one were to look at Independence Hall, and note all the tourists walking around, buying tickets for tours and being throughly entertained, one could easily assume that the positive economic impact of the area could be summed up through the inflow of monetary gain the taxpayers recieve from the area. But it's much more complex than that. One would have to look past all the soft pretzel vendors lining the streets making a decent living, ignore the value natives to the region gain by just knowing it's there, look past the increase in tourism brought to the region just to see the area - Even if it's mostly during the summer, on weekends.

Of course, the soccer stadium won't be a national monument, and Chester won't get the kind of traffic and positive perception that the city of Philadelphia gains by maintaining Independence Hall. But the economic principle behind both remains the same. Positive attitudes and increased traffic help create positive economic growth. A soccer stadium in Chester is just a very good idea, in that it will aid the rest of the waterfront's redevelopment.

 

The argument this guy is making is against stadiums that are just stadiums. IT DOESN'T APPLY HERE or Collinsville. Just an ass trying to make a buck every time he hears stadium.

 

Benefit of the Doubt Department:

I think maybe once upon a time, publicly-funded stadium deals tended to be pretty outrageous corporate-welfare handouts, which basically funneled public cash to fatcats with no benefit to the non-sports-fan public. (The EJ Dome in St. Louis was one such sweetheart deal.)

But cities have gotten a lot more savvy since then. Near as I can tell, the Chester and Collisville deals would both be good for their cities even without soccer stadiums. If there were no stadium attached to these developments, none of these economists would even notice they were going on.

 

I noticed that this Professor from Villanova never mentions the Comcast Tower downtown, which in the end Comcast will receive a lot more than 60 million in tax breaks for building it. Tax breaks are everywhere for the huge Corporations in America (I heard recently that at some Walmart and Target stores the sales tax go to the store, not to the state) and if these breaks can make a forgotten place like Chester, Collinsville or South Central LA destination places for at least 18 times a year then I am all for it and so should the good professor.

 

Why do these guys basically say that the multiplier effect is wrong when their peers made me learn it in Econ 101?

 

Precisely. Eckstein nor any of his cronies have ever studied a mixed-use development. Most of his info centers around monolithic structures plopped down in blighted industrial areas or in urban centers, where they often have a detrimental effect by the nature of their design, size and cost.

Any idiot can figure out that a large block (ala the PA convention center, portions of which are a horrendous architectural and planning blight in my opinion) with hundreds of feet of dead wall along a streetscape is a bad thing. It's not pedestrian friendly, which means little foot traffic except on game days, nor does it pump money into an economy or create tax revenue as would a series of individual commercial or mixed-use buildings that are in use all year. This is all common knowledge and urban planning 101.

I'm glad the Phils and Iggs located their stadiums away from the city center; Philly didn't need it. Maybe non-descript downtowns such as Jacksonville and Phoenix do, but it's because they are not cities that were allowed to develop naturally, like Philly, Chicago, NY or Boston, rather they are expanses of urban sprawl with some big buildings in the middle.

 

This guy is onto something

The situations are very different in that the politicians running the cities aren't being pressured from the public to keep or get a team there. The case with the Eagles new stadium a while back is the antithesis of this. Granted the blanket threat of moving to LA was laughable, the city didn't have the kind of leverage Chester does. It's all leverage peeps, or in econobabble as Renegoulet has cited me for before 'elasticity of demand'


O and Rene, you also make a lot of good pts but i havent figured out how to double quote here... you might wanna add the caveat that I-95 and the Delaware riverfront in Philly is a good example of unnatural planning too - not walkable, hardly drivable, i've never enjoyed going down there at all. I hope chester has learned from Philly's experience and does a better job.

 

Good call. I-95s only virtue is that it's mostly sunken, so maybe one day the city will extend the street grid overtop of it.