baystateroad wrote:There is no valid comparison between Boston and Kansas City
When did this become a thread strictly on comparing boston to kansas city?
You posted the following statement:
"---from 1980 to 1995, the population levels in downtown areas in cities with downtown sports facilities declined more than in the other communities."
You then made the following statement:
Downtown needs residents. . .the first and only thing we should be concerned with is making sure people want to live there, and that once there they want to stay. An arena can not accomplish this
People disagreed with you, so you turned the focus of this debate outward by asking for "evidence" which contradicted your statements and your position above.
I apologize, cause I basically ignored most of what you wrote. I'll be a lot more likely to pay attention if you give me the Reader's Digest version and link to anything that needs additional explantion; but you raise reasonable issues, so I will at least do the favor of explaining why you're wrong.
First of all, the article you posted makes a lot of speculative, forward looking statements on things that may or may not (and often don't) meet expectations. What you provide isn't academic research, friend, it looks like someone at the Globe got a press release from Boston's CVB, who are notorious for flubbing statistics. Ignoring that, I still don't see where it says anything about increasing the population density or attracting residents, which is what I was talking about.
In other words, I fail to see how Boston hoping to make $1.5 - $2 million [total for hotels, food, and everything -- that is not city revenue, that is total sales] over a weekend means an arena is a good investment for KC. It attempts to make the point that there is an economic return to sports, but it doesn't address where the money goes. How much of that goes right back out of town to Corporate Headquarters and into CEO paychecks, player, coaches, and owner paychecks? Most of it. Let's be simple and say the city gets 10% of the $2 million, for a total of $200,000 primarily in the form of sales tax. Not a bad haul for a holiday weekend, you might think, but it'll take 1,000 of those pay off a $200,000,000 arena (which is a pretty lowball estimate to begin with) and doesn't include the upgrades and repairs which will "need" to be done every few years to "maximize the return on our investment".
In short--you were asking for examples/evidence of vibrant cities where development occurred around such arenas and contributed to the vibrancy of the area.
I PROVIDED SUCH "EVIDENCE" AND NOW YOU DISMISS IT OUT OF HAND--ON THE BASIS THAT THE "EVIDENCE" I PROVIDED
REFLECTED A PLACE THAT'S VIBRANT. I provided exactly what you asked for and you now dismiss it because it's exactly what you asked for.
Settle down, you haven't provided anything but a newspaper article that talks about sports impacting the local economy, and uses questionable numbers as the basis for its assertions. The article says nothing about contributing to the vibrancy of the area as a neighborhood, and it says nothing about the arena causing development. It says that tourists come and spend money. That's fine and dandy, tourists come to downtown KC for big conventions and spend money too, but I wouldn't characterize the area as vibrant. You are implying that correlation = causation, which is not true.
If I'm missing some major point about Fenway being built in the boonies and spurring development, I'll remind you that it was built in 1912, long before the automobile revolution.
You don't make any sense--how can this not be relevant? You ask for vibrancy, get it, than say, "nope, it's irrelevant on the basis that it's vibrant".
My point was that KC is putting an arena in what is currently recognized to be a blighted part of town. Boston didn't do anything like this, their stadium was built in 1912 for crying out loud. The situations have nothing in common.
If the reality had been the opposite--that people had been leaving the fenway neighborhood in droves over the past 50 years because they were tired of the ballpark are you saying that you wouldn't see that as supporting your position--as relevant?
By saying "an arena can not accomplish this" all I'm saying is that a new arena in Kansas City won't suck in tons of residents. It WILL NOT be a massive catalyst for people moving TO the area, and MAY be catalyst for people moving FROM the area. Your article doesn't provide any evidence that tons of people moved to Fenway's neighborhood because of Fenway, and even if it did, it's still a completely different situation than what we have in KC.
You set the criteria--now you're somehow changing it--reinterpreting it--simply because it proved you wrong. Are you changing your position now? Do you even have a position?
I stand firm on my position -- you changed the criteria in an attempt to prove me wrong.
You have no credibility.
Blah blah, that's like Hitler telling Osama bin Laden he's a jerk. This is the internet. Nobody has any credibility.
Huh? The examples I posted do not illustrate the above circumstances at all--the fenway is not a dense neighborhood in which a park is going to be inserted--it's a place with a park already in place and well established. We're not talking about an arena "entering the picture"--we're talking about ancillary development "entering the picture" around the arena--about the arena supporting and possibly driving development.
What, in 1912? Big deal. Things were a lot different then.
That's what you wanted proof of and what I submitted. You said the presence of such a park will not support development and will drive development away--the examples I submitted directly contradict you.
I did not, I said the presence of such a park MAY not spur development and MAY drive development and residents away. This is not Boston, 1912. This is Kansas City, 2003. The situations are, again, not comparable.
What you said above may now be your position--that's fine--but that's not what you wanted proof of.
Since you obviously didn't get it, let me spell it out for you: show me academic research demonstrating that at least 50% of downtown stadiums built since WWII have directly caused positive population growth for the five or ten surrounding blocks. I will be satisfied with just half, I figure that will give us roughly a 50/50 chance. Show me academic research demonstrating that heavily subsidizing arenas in general and pro sports in particular results in a positive effect on the economy at the neighborhood, city, metro, and regional levels. This should not be particularly hard if you are correct, tons of economists have done this research.
At one time development of the area around fenway park was also quite scarce--that's why they sited it there--because there was plenty of space. And look what grew (and continues to grow up) around it. You're wrong.
YEAH IN 1912 YOU NUMBSKULL. Development continuing to grow up around a long-vibrant area is natural.
Some people. Sheesh.
"It is not to my good friend's heresy that I impute his honesty. On the contrary, 'tis his honesty that has brought upon him the character of heretic." -- Ben Franklin