Haven’t looked at the timeline, but we for sure didn’t have the training center we have now. And SF was not in ‘habit’ of hosting soccer like it is now. And the USMNT Soccer Org announced they were leaving. And and and. And despite thinking it would be fun to host some WC games, I’m not surprised we are not.
The long term positive of the red line extension is not settled. By the time ridership scales to something that approaches the costs and upkeep necessary for economic feasibility, it could be another 50-100 years. For heavy rail transit to be economically efficient, it requires dense residential and commercial areas. The Far South Side neighborhoods the RLE will serve have experienced decades of population decline and disinvestment. So we will be subsidizing a highly inefficient line with sparce ridership for generations when our system already has a financial and generational maintenance backlog. I remember 1994 brought in visitors from so many countries, they were blown away by our City, and they told their family and friends that you must visit Chicago if you visit America. It was similar to the impression German fans got visiting our City for the USA Germany friendly on the 6th. We now have 3 times the amount of international tourists we had before the 1994 World Cup, topping 2 million annually. This has brought a great economic and cultural benefit to our City. EDIT: Remember Barcelona Olympics? That city has never been the same since, the benefit has been immeasurable.
A friend who was having serious issues with deer eating plants in her yard found 1 1/2" square pieces of construction paper, with Xmas ornament hangers, dipped in cougars piss (really!) online and stopped having deer eating her plants. Weirdly effective. ('Course ya gotta replace 'em every coupla months.)
So, she is on "onlycougars.com" and likes to have the ladies pee? Whatever floats one's boat!!! Oh, actual cougars?!? Got it
There is likely a witty political joke that goes here about certain political figures that are (allegedly) known to prefer nubile pee
Well there are a few sentences I never thought I’d see on this forum. One of the reasons I love this place- unpredictability
I try, at least sometimes. Note, I did NOT ask the more pressing question, "Where does one buy actual cougar pee?"
Okay, Game two of the World Cup starts in half an hour. Do I stay in my hotel room (note, I stopped at a brew pub on my way to the hotel), watch the match, hit the pool and go to sleep or head out to another bar to watch the match, knowing I have super important meeting in the morning, rest of my conference and a three hour drive afterwards? Oh, I have the answer
The RLE is how the city reverses the years of disinvestment. Transit itself is a public good, I personally do not care if it makes a profit or not - our streets certainly don’t generate profit but we are always investing in them- but even with the understanding that people do want to see a profit, the RLE will deliver not just in ridership, but increased property values (and taxes) for buildings nearby, and increased tax receipts as density is built around those stations. So while it may indeed take time to be “profitable”, it will be generating revenue for the city well above and beyond the fares collected. For as many anecdotes as you can recall of people personally saying they’re telling all of their friends and family to come after 1994, theres no correlation to show that those anecdotes turned into more visitors. I was just in PA and someone there mentioned they’re planning to visit Chicago to get away from the World Cup chaos- not every tourist is a soccer fan. Barcelona is in fact a notable exception- mentioned here along with the 1994 WC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/world-cup-financial-gains-rarely-materialize-for-host-1.2671024 Economists estimate it would’ve taken ~30 years to make the infrastructure improvement they funded for those games materialize, justifying the $9.4b price tag as necessary and accelerated by them hosting the Olympics. That was also 30+ years ago and both the IOC and FIFA have stacked the deck against host cities a lot higher in that time. Chicago isn’t a hidden gem of a city that would benefit from the expense of hosting the games we’ll still do insane tourism numbers this summer without them. Hell, I don’t know any of the host cities that will be hidden gems - do you really think the average European that has to sit in an expensive ass Uber to get to the stadium in Dallas or Kansas City is going to come away gobsmacked by how awesome a city it otherwise is? And to try to scale that against the costs, knowing that FIFA collects most profit and has even demanded cities not even collect sales tax on ticket sales, is, again, a sucker’s bet.
Well we have reached a milestone friends. This is the first time I have ever watched a world cup game and thought to myself that I have seen MLS games at a higher level of play. Pete (is particularly unimpressed with the Czechs so far)
I, of course, headed back downtown and I am in one of the most interesting bars I have stumbled upon in a while. Yesterdays, a tiny, horror themed bar that has a strong dive bar theme. Sadly, they do not have a tv (they were playing Dead Alive!). Stopped into a crappy, crappy dive bar to watch the match, with no sound, and I am the only person paying in the room with the TV and paying attention. Having a Tree Hugger 10mg THC beverage. I will sleep well, hopefully. Should have gone back to the German place.
Jiggs has his class watching the game on Telemundo. He refuses to watch on Fox even though he's teaching English.
That was pretty dire football. Where are the Milan Baroš, Tomáš Rosický, Jan Koller, Vladimír Šmicer, Petr Cech, etc. of this generation? Not worth sitting in this crappy dive bar to watch. Think I will head back for the second half, maybe that and the THC tallboy I am drinking will put me to sleep.
I think the issue is just that blocking off some streets occasionally is not a big ********ing deal. We do it all the ********ing time. Street fests take over streets for long periods of time all summer long. We enjoy it. We enjoy World Cup games. We enjoy Bears games. It’s not a big ********ing deal. And Rahm is just full of shit because he’s trying to whitewash his recorded before he attempts a run a president. ******** that guy with a Trump Ballroom.
This is exactly why I wanted to read some white papers and also why I said not all of the benefits can be measured in dollars and cents.
Who thinks the US are going to be embarrassed tomorrow by, umm, Paraguay? I do! I can see the US winning 3-0 and I can equally seem them losing 0-2.
That was just one of the concessions they were asking for, and it is a big deal, it costs us money- they shut down streets for other events to direct traffic flow, not so that some FIFA exec’s dipshit kid (or whoever they decide is a VIP) can get to the venue. Way different than a street festival. And yea, ******** Rahm- I don’t even think he’s trying to whitewash here, he sees all of the coverage of cities losing money, unsold tickets (as of yesterday there were still over 100 unsold for the U.S. opening game in LA- not mention tons being sold on the secondary market), empty hotel rooms, and feels like he can boost his standing for 2028 by saying ‘see, I did a good thing’. A broken clock is right 14 times a week, and that tiny little broken clock of man just happened to be right in telling FIFA to ******** off (even for the wrong reasons). I can’t wait to see him get blown out in the Dem primaries.