Thinking of a Series of Schemes

Roy Edroso points us to Field of Schemes, which seems like a great resource indeed.

My favorite response in the post-mortems of the west side stadium project were Chris Russo’s argument that it’s a great idea because there are hotels midtown that there aren’t around the other New York stadia. Let’s think this through for a second. Yankee Stadium is the landmark home of the country’s most successful sports franchise. It is located in the South Bronx. Let me repeat that: it is located in the South Bronx. You know, the definitive example of urban decay, one that remains an impoverished area while many other stadium-free areas of the city are going through a remarkable renaissance. But people are so convinced of the economic benefits of these projects, despite the utter lack of either logic or empirical support, that somehow the next stadium will be the one that spurs economic development, that will be worth billions of dollars. The way so many local media types shill relentlessly for these remarkably wasteful subsidies is an example of media degeneracy as stark as anything you’ll see on Fox News.