A very large casino has been proposed here. Here's the article.
http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/201...springfield/3rJYWgiGEqJhpD145aWv7J/story.html
http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/201...springfield/3rJYWgiGEqJhpD145aWv7J/story.html
Although a plan that actually connects to other downtown amenities would be nice, when one realizes that it's always the raunchiest of places where casinos are proposed, it begins to be something not worth broadcasting. That's a list most places don't want to make, because it says a lot about what the developer thinks about the community. More often than not, these communities have segments that are worth caring about and with potential to turn around, but when a developer proposes a casino (which is sort of like what land use attorneys call a LULU, or locally undesirable land use because everyone visits them but no one wants to live near one) they take advantage of a disengaged electorate and a tax hungry municipal legislature to build these things. It doesn't mean all casinos are bad, just that more often than not they are proposed in pits. This raises the question of whether there begins to build a stigma for places that actually have a casino.....anyone who realizes the aforementioned pattern or trend will automatically assume if there is a casino in a place, it's a pit. That's my take on it. Better to 'sneak' a gambling element into a larger mixed use project than to propose a "casino" labeled as such.
We are discussing this in the other casino thread and a question has come up.
Does anyone know if the Paramount sign in this render actually exists? It's a dead copy of the Boston sign and the 2009 Google street view shows a different blade sign.
^I don't know if I agree with that. There are certainly examples of casinos being proposed in depressed communities (Springfield, New Bedford, Bethlehem PA, etc) but I don't think it's necessarily a rule (or even a trend).
Many casinos are proposed in rural areas which I would hardly describe as pits. Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun are perfect examples. If these developers were targeting "pits," Waterbury, Bridgeport or even Hartford would be more ideal. More locally for you, Oxford was the chosen location. Rumford, Lewiston and Skowhegan are more urban (to a degree in the cases of Rumford and Skowhegan), run-down communities with a disengaged electorate. There are dozens of casinos out west in nice communities (Lake Tahoe, for example) or out in beautiful areas (I passed a few in the hills en route to Yosemite) in the country. These places are make it evident that Casinos don't necessarily only sprout up in "pits."
Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods are the two biggest casinos in the U.S. Their location has more to do with being sandwiched in between the NY and Boston metro areas than being located in "raunchy" areas. Tahoe casinos are there because it's a tourist Hotspot. People also really enjoy living in that area. The rural casinos scattered around the country are typically established as resorts or sprout up on existing tribal land. Twin River in RI is in a nice section of suburban Lincoln and evolved around a dog track (like many casinos do), not because it's a bad area.
Urban casinos are a mixed bag. There are plenty of urban casinos in nice areas. You have major casinos in Miami, New Orleans, Tampa, Wilmington DE, Kansas City, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee. Newport RI even has a small one (Newport Grand). None of those cities are raunchy or pits. In the case of New Orleans and St. Louis, those casinos are right downtown.
I have zero doubt that places like Springfield or New Bedford are chosen by developers because the process of breaking ground may be simpler due to the local economic woes. However, I hardly make the leap to associating casinos with "raunchy." Even Boston has a handful of casino proposals on the table right now (one involving the race track and another closer to downtown in the seaport district).
I wouldn't call downtown New Bedford a 'pit'. Maybe that was appropriate 15 years ago, but not today.
Fair enough, but it seems like every proposal I've heard of recently has been in a pit. Lewiston, Biddeford, etc. Wasn't there one in East Boston recently, and New Bedford also? I think it may have more to do with the economic woes, like you said, but to me that often equates with 'pit.' Out west, municipalities are much larger in land area--I wonder if the casinos you referenced are in the rural areas of those places, or in their character-based downtowns? I guess the point is that, regardless of where they show up, it hardly ever seems to be in a place people really care about. Whether that's because it's a pit or rural or, in the case of the Seaport, no one else is really around (at least that was the case until recently), I don't know. I do know that casinos don't appear, from my point of view, to be proposed in places that are really successful already.
But you're an optimist. Buses aren't just for poor people, either. Stigma is often stronger, it seems, than objectivity.
Instead of getting into a debate about what makes a place a "pit" or not, I'll just say that we likely have different definitions of what makes a place a "pit."
As far as Casinos go, I really don't think stigma has anything to do with it. Again, I think it's simply jobs. If you have an area where people live and jobs are scarce, a casino proposal is ideal. The reason? Because it promises to employ local residents and inject tax dollars into the local economy. That's why you see many proposals in cities and towns that are struggling economically.
Rural/urban has little to do with it. Most of the rural communities where casinos are being built have a lack of employment opportunities around them as well (See: Oxford, ME). Many communities outside of a metro area struggle with jobs because they lack employment centers. This is the story in Maine which is one of the most rural states on the East Coast. There are dozens of towns well outside of Portland or Bangor that are far from being "pits" (they're just the opposite in many cases- charming tourist towns), but struggle with putting people to work. This is the case all over the country. Many of these towns (and it's the case for many of the rural casinos out west) build casinos because it puts their local residents to work when work is scarce. The casino near Yosemite was in a small town on one of the few major routes to the national park. There was almost nothing there save for some homes and the casino. Without a doubt, the casino was built with two things in mind: putting locals to work and collecting revenue from tourists that were otherwise just passing through. The area was rural and beautiful. The complete opposite of "pit" in anyone's definition.
The same logic holds true. New Bedford doesn't have a proposed casino because New Bedford's a pit. New Bedford has a casino proposal because it's a city of 95,000 people with unemployment of near 10% that's located on a major tourist highway (I-195 which brings everyone from RI, CT, NJ, NY and points south to Cape Cod) as well as being 25 minutes from Providence and 50 minutes from Boston. People in New Bedford need work and the city needs the tax revenue. The same logic applies in the rural areas and even the bigger tourist areas like Lake Tahoe. You have a lot of people and not as many jobs. The casino becomes an attractive option.
Most of the rural casinos I've seen out west don't have "character based downtowns" at all. Most of them have very little in the way of a town or city center. The casinos are usually located on primary routes and are set back and isolated. In Tahoe, they have a lot of resort casinos. Similar to what exists in Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun (a little smaller than those places). In Tahoe, they tend to be right near most of the residential areas and close to the tourist spots (the ski areas and the lake).
Harrah's in New Orleans and the Casino in St. Louis are the two urban casinos in downtown areas that stand out the most to me. Both in great areas in the city center (abutting the French Quarter and the River in the case of New Orleans). They're the antithesis of "pit." Whether they do much to generate activity in the downtown areas on their own remains to be seen. I don't have a snapshot of either place before the casino so I don't know.
I'm not necessarily "pro" casinos but I don't associate them with being in pits or raunchy areas. I don't know many people who do either. I would, however, agree that areas struggling economically tend to be the places developers target. But I think there's a big gap between economically stuggling and "pit."
I think we agree to a greater extent than you realize. Without debating "pit," the point is that in both rural areas and "pits" however defined, it is fair to say that these are places people don't particularly care about. Whether that's because the population is transient and therefore not inclined to become politically engaged (as in pits or, as you called New Beford, "depressed") or because there simply isn't enough of an immediately local population around the proposed site to make a stink about it at the polls, because the broader community doesn't have to see the thing but can still benefit from it (rural areas), it doesn't matter. The point is that I've never really seen a casino proposed in a place people truly care about. I don't mean a community, but a "place" within that community. Therefore, I think that if you can draw that conclusion, at least in the urban proposals it equates with stigma. In rural areas, one might just say "that town needs jobs." But in an urban location, unless it's a vegas or something which bills itself as an entertainment destination, I think the stigma is stronger. I think you're kidding yourself if you disagree, but feel free to. I know you're an optimist, which is great and encouraging and more places need more optimists, but casinos as a rule, based solely on my perception, and I'm not holding myself out to be a casino expert, just a regular person, tend to be proposed in pits when they are proposed in the urban variety. That doesn't mean there are not exceptions, but all they do is prove the rule. Maybe it's different out west, I don't know. If we could drum up a list of urban casino locations existing or proposed in New England and poll the audience as to whether those places are pits or not, I think the results might contradict with your argument. Maybe not.
Though I will drop down to Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun on occasion and am by no means anti casino, I am not sure how supportive I would be if one was proposed for downtown Portland. I am still stunned at the popularity and success of some of these facilities that continue to flourish throughout the country. Obviously the developers and gaming experts feel that Springfield can be profitable to even consider investing there, but I am surprised due to the close proximity of the above mentioned resorts. As far as urban casino complexes go, I think that Shreveport/Bossier City has done an amazing job of developing a gaming district on the Red River and it appears that both cities have benefited from the decision. Springfield is similar in size to Shreveport and the city leaders could probably learn a lot if they examine Shreveport's lessons learned/pros and cons.