Quote:
Originally Posted by morgin
It doesn't have to though. As long as there are tangible benefits to the city, even as simple as "making a good percentage of our citizens happy" by making the outlay of funding, it can likely be justified provided it is a reasonable outlay given the economics of the project. Also, they need to be up front with the public and stop calling it an "investment". It's not an investment any more than the mandatory public art component of infrastructure projects is an "investment". It's an investment into factors that are very difficult to quantify, and rarely will result in a zero dollar impact.
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And don't get me wrong, I'd love it if the reality of stadium/arena building was that the regions could demand the owners not only 100% fund projects but also to get approval had to contribute certain monies to offset regional infrastructure changes to support transportation to and from, etc. We don't live in a rational, fairy tale world though and since regions have long allowed themselves to be bent over, we need to focus on incremental change. Slowly reducing the amount spend on these projects when the economics of the primary tenants means they should be 100% privately funded is one way, but we aren't even close to there yet.