It's No Accident

In yesterday's post about the Pittsburgh Penguins' bid for the slots license in Pittsburgh, I mentioned Nationwide Realty's part of the proposal, which is to develop mixed-use retail and (probably not-so-affordable) housing around a proposed Isle of Capri casino and new arena for the profit of the Penguins. Nationwide Realty is the real estate arm of Nationwide Insurance, and it is mentioned in reports that the firm had a role in redeveloping the area around the arena for the Columbus Blue Jackets hockey team -- in fact, the arena is called the Nationwide Arena.

Coincidentally enough, I recently spent some time not only in Columbus, but in that very area. Here is the story:

The arena area -- just north of Downtown -- really is booming. Everything is hip and upper-middle- to upscale. Many trendy and expensive restaurants. Real estate values in the immediately adjoining neighborhood are heading skyward, and there are plenty of visible gay men -- not the kind of gays who can't come out of the closet for fear of being beaten up at work, but the kind that Richard Florida likes, with plenty of disposable income. And yet just a few years ago, I am told, this very area was a run-down place.

Within comfortable walking distance is the area where I stayed, and it is what some might call a "transitional neighborhood." On one block there are steakhouses where the prices would make me balk even on a special occasion. On the next . . . well, the marker of the abrupt transition is a White Castle where I ate one night (I know I shouldn't, but damn, those little burgers are like flavor crystals bursting in your mouth). There, the management decided recently that the restaurant would no longer hand out cups for free water, because the local junkies had discovered that they could ask for a cup and then fill it with stolen pop at the fountain. This is literally a few blocks away from places that have valet parking provided by Adonis-like guys in tuxedos.

I realize that this is not unlike plenty of places in this country, but that is the problem. Every city -- at least among Rust Belt cities -- is pursuing a "development" strategy like this, where "blighted" neighborhoods end up looking a whole lot better, but where all of the former residents are gone. There is nothing wrong with improving the neighborhood for the people who actually live there, but this form of development only makes things better for the relative few new higher-income people who move in; the crowds of out-of-the-neighborhood visitors who hit the upscale retail locations; and above all the real estate speculators who greased enough political wheels with local campaign contributions and kissed enough ass at the city planning commission.

Meanwhile, the poor people don't just disappear. They end up somewhere, sometimes in the same city and sometimes not. Municipal policy toward them is one of willful, malign neglect combined with ever-escalating disciplinary repression. This is no present -- let alone future -- that anyone should want to be a part of, and while cities cannot do everything to make up for wicked policies at the state and especially the federal levels, they are also not completely powerless.

So in Pittsburgh, I say we take seriously the claims of the governor and the state generally when they talk about what a godsend slots will be -- and insist on more from the operators who take this lucrative license. In addition to their taxes, have them fund something real for the city in perpetuity, instead of a new arena for a sports owner and the million-dollar-a-year pittance that Isle of Capri is proposing for "community givebacks." The state Gaming Board is going to listen to what the Pittsburgh city fathers have to say on this one; so since it's our license to grant in the first place -- as members of the public -- why shouldn't we have the right to insist on real, specific commitments to fund local services?