The authors provide an eye-opening account of recent battles over publicly financed stadiums in some of America’s largest cities. Their interviews with the key decision makers present a behind-the-scenes look at how and why powerful individuals and organizations foist these sports palaces on increasingly unreceptive communities.
Public Dollars, Private Stadiums
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Are you a finance, investing, economics or accounting professional? Find books, read blog posts, and discover new authors and thought-leaders in Money & Markets, a new home for finance industry professionals on Amazon.com. > Shop now |
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
Review
"Public Dollars, Private Stadiums helps us understand the political processes involved in using public money for new sports stadiums. It is a must read for anyone interested in this important new issue."
(Richard E. Lapchick Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University 20990101)"This book is readable and smart . . . Kevin Delaney and Rick Eckstein show how conflicts over sports subsidies are emblematic of the kinds of power relationships that prevail in each community."
(Lee Clarke author of Mission Improbable: Using Fantasy Documents to Tame Disaster 20990101)"Every time you hear a politician or millionaire sports mogul start to promote the benefits of building a brand-spanking new stadium, your immediate reaction, as a taxpayer, should be to watch your wallet. This revealing, dead-on investigation of the modern-day sports stadium boondoggle and its often-devastating impact on American cities is an essential read for anyone, sports fan or not, who wants to avoid getting fleeced.
"
(Steve Lopez, Los Angeles Times columnist 20990101)
"
About the Author
Kevin J. Delaney is an associate professor of sociology at Temple University and author of Strategic Bankruptcy. Rick Eckstein is an associate professor of sociology and assistant director of the Center for Peace and Justice Education at Villanova University, as well as the author of Nuclear Power and Social Power.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? |
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
Share your thoughts with other customers
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
By Yue Han Dai
Format:Paperback
This was a very interesting book. Written by 2 scholars but easy to read and enlightening to anyone who wants a closer look at how sports teams and cities play off against each other and with competition (other sports teams and other cities).
Also gives an interesting look at the regional dynamics of the different regions of the USA. Very interesting look at how people in various cities in the US see themselves and how the importance of spectator sports ranks relative to other economic and entertainment opportunities in various cities.
A must-read for the average citizen to help make informed choices if and when governments in their area are evaluationg/pushing new stadiums.
Also gives an interesting look at the regional dynamics of the different regions of the USA. Very interesting look at how people in various cities in the US see themselves and how the importance of spectator sports ranks relative to other economic and entertainment opportunities in various cities.
A must-read for the average citizen to help make informed choices if and when governments in their area are evaluationg/pushing new stadiums.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I picked up this book because my city is in the middle of a debate as to whether we should finance 65% of a proposed new arena by selling bonds. I am opposed to this proposal, though I am not opposed to public financing in principle--even (or perhaps especially) in a recession. Still, the proposal (and the details of the proposed agreement) seemed wrong-headed to me and I picked up this book to see if anyone had dealt with these of issues before. What I found in these very readable 204 pages amazed me. For not only was the dialogue I was hearing not at all new (this book was published in 2003 but substitute the city's name and the team's name and you have the conversations I am hearing every day) but the underlying issues are not new either. For the battle over the arena, the authors argue is really a battle over who controls the city: a network of corporations, led by banks or the communities of people who live in the city? And cities, the authors say, are controlled by corporations.
To arrive at their conclusion, the authors examine nine cities (two of which have not succeeded in building a new arena) and try to determine: 1) who is pushing for these new arenas and why; 2) how do the people who live in the cities feel about the new arenas; 3) how much revenue do the arenas actually produce; and 4) what happens to politicians who push the arenas.
They discover that the people pushing these arenas (business networks usually headed by major banks) are interested in using them to either "attract high-priced corporate talent" to the city or to attract corporations to the city. As a result, business leaders want the city to be a tourist destination. They want good roads, plenty of parking, cultural recreations such as a sports stadiums, and good restaurants. They want, in short, to create a place that people will want to visit because they expect their high-priced talent to live in the suburbs, not the city. The politicians who represent the citizens of the city tend to go along with this vision because the voice of the business community tends to be the one they hear the most. Or as, Delaney and Eckstein put it "executives are invited to sit on economic development task forces and be part of municipal stadium authorities. If these successful business leaders, who are also involved with local philanthropic organizations, think that publicly financed stadiums are a good for the local community, then why should policymakers (or the general public) think otherwise?" (p. 187)
The people who live in the city where the arenas are proposed to be built are typically not convinced that their city ought to become a tourist destination. In city after city, Delaney and Eckstein discovered significant grass-roots resistance to the arenas that in two cases led to the projects being cancelled and usually led to the downfall of the politicians who pushed the arena deals through. For the citizens of most cities were, it turns out, more concerned with good schools, safe neighborhoods, and parks than they were with arenas. And when politicians sacrificed the former for the sake of the latter, they paid a steep political price.
In Hamilton County, the Republican supervisor who pushed through the arena lost re-election to a Democrat in 2000, even though a Democrat had not been elected to the three-member county commission since 1964. "Public opinion polls indicated that voters boiled the election down to one issue: stadiums" (pp. 49 and 50). In Cleveland, a fast-rising lawyer, Tom Chema, crashed to earth over the arena. He was appointed the first chairman of a non-profit jointly controlled by the City and County to manage the arena but was forced out amidst lawsuits against the city and county from brought by his erstwhile friends when he could not pay the bills. In Phoenix "public backlash [over the arena] was unambiguous. Of the three supervisors who voted for the tax [for the arena], one was defeated for reelection, another lost a bid for state office, and the third was barely reelected--but not before she was shot in the buttocks by a person shouting about the stadium." (p. 118) In San Diego, a council woman was forced to stand down amidst fraud charges and lawsuits are pending in Philadelphia. But still, amidst these ruined political careers, the arenas get built. Why? Are they so good for the local economy that courageous political leaders are willing to literally sacrifice their careers to see them through?
The authors cite many examples of how the arenas are bad for the local economy; how they compete with local business and how they can, in fact, drive businesses that provide good-paying jobs out of town. But I think what convinced me the most of all their arguments is what business leaders say about it all. So I will give you one extended quote they provide. A Pittsburgh executive, they talked to, reflected "Sports... you can argue over the numbers, but they are just not economic generators. If you had $100 million to spend in the region and wanted to get the most impact, sports wouldn't do it. It's not like it's creating a lot of jobs. You know, the Steelers won all those Super Bowls when the steel mills were pulling out of town." (p. 160) And, of course, we know what happened to some of the localities they profiled. In 2010 Business Insider named San Diego as the city most likely city to go bankrupt in 2011. (San Diego avoided that fate in 2011 by making some truly draconian cuts but that has not assuaged the business community who think San Diego is still on the verge of bankruptcy.) Hamilton County, meanwhile, had to sell its public safety hospital to pay for its arenas. The Pittsburgh executive was right. Arenas are not good for the local economy. And yet they keep getting built. One analyst, the authors cite, estimated that approximately $10 billion in public funds has been spent on new arenas since the 1980s. Why?
The authors lay the blame squarely on the businesses pushing the arenas. In their narrative, the elected officials are merely the front for these large businesses although they also state that these elected officials have bought into the corporate ideology of "correct growth". Indeed, at times, this book sounds a very anti-business note that, to be honest, irritated me. I don't think either businesses or business associations are somehow nefarious. Furthermore, and perhaps I too have bought into the "corporate ideology" I do think that businesses create jobs and I would like to see more businesses come to my city. On top of which, even the authors recognize (though in a kind of oh-by-the-way manner) that arenas are not necessarily at the top of the business leaders' wish lists. They "were told by business leaders in several cities that the office sector would benefit most from improvements that were not stadium-related: enhancing Internet infrastructure, nurturing small business development through seed money, improving education beyond the most basic skills, and developing reliable and affordable mass transit. These kinds of improvements, however, are far less sexy, far less visible, and therefore far less attractive to politicians." (p. 192) Politicians, then had at least as much say over what got developed as did the business community. They weren't mindless marionettes manipulated behind the scenes. It's even possible that researchers who had been friendlier to the business community might have discovered that business leaders in some of the cities may have settled for the development they could get rather than the development they really wanted. In any event, it seems that the voters were right to throw the bums out.
This is not to say that the business community is not important in all of this; but it does suggest that the authors' resignation to businesses abusing cities and the democratic process (they recommend boycotting businesses that sponsor arenas rather than going to the ballot) may be misplaced. The politicians may be the real problem here.
That being said, if there is a proposed arena in your city and you think it's a bad idea, I recommend this book. It will help you frame your arguments. And if you're a researcher or a student trying to work out why we are spending billions of dollars on stadiums at a time like this, this eminently readable book begins to get at some of the right questions. It is therefore, to my mind, invaluable.
To arrive at their conclusion, the authors examine nine cities (two of which have not succeeded in building a new arena) and try to determine: 1) who is pushing for these new arenas and why; 2) how do the people who live in the cities feel about the new arenas; 3) how much revenue do the arenas actually produce; and 4) what happens to politicians who push the arenas.
They discover that the people pushing these arenas (business networks usually headed by major banks) are interested in using them to either "attract high-priced corporate talent" to the city or to attract corporations to the city. As a result, business leaders want the city to be a tourist destination. They want good roads, plenty of parking, cultural recreations such as a sports stadiums, and good restaurants. They want, in short, to create a place that people will want to visit because they expect their high-priced talent to live in the suburbs, not the city. The politicians who represent the citizens of the city tend to go along with this vision because the voice of the business community tends to be the one they hear the most. Or as, Delaney and Eckstein put it "executives are invited to sit on economic development task forces and be part of municipal stadium authorities. If these successful business leaders, who are also involved with local philanthropic organizations, think that publicly financed stadiums are a good for the local community, then why should policymakers (or the general public) think otherwise?" (p. 187)
The people who live in the city where the arenas are proposed to be built are typically not convinced that their city ought to become a tourist destination. In city after city, Delaney and Eckstein discovered significant grass-roots resistance to the arenas that in two cases led to the projects being cancelled and usually led to the downfall of the politicians who pushed the arena deals through. For the citizens of most cities were, it turns out, more concerned with good schools, safe neighborhoods, and parks than they were with arenas. And when politicians sacrificed the former for the sake of the latter, they paid a steep political price.
In Hamilton County, the Republican supervisor who pushed through the arena lost re-election to a Democrat in 2000, even though a Democrat had not been elected to the three-member county commission since 1964. "Public opinion polls indicated that voters boiled the election down to one issue: stadiums" (pp. 49 and 50). In Cleveland, a fast-rising lawyer, Tom Chema, crashed to earth over the arena. He was appointed the first chairman of a non-profit jointly controlled by the City and County to manage the arena but was forced out amidst lawsuits against the city and county from brought by his erstwhile friends when he could not pay the bills. In Phoenix "public backlash [over the arena] was unambiguous. Of the three supervisors who voted for the tax [for the arena], one was defeated for reelection, another lost a bid for state office, and the third was barely reelected--but not before she was shot in the buttocks by a person shouting about the stadium." (p. 118) In San Diego, a council woman was forced to stand down amidst fraud charges and lawsuits are pending in Philadelphia. But still, amidst these ruined political careers, the arenas get built. Why? Are they so good for the local economy that courageous political leaders are willing to literally sacrifice their careers to see them through?
The authors cite many examples of how the arenas are bad for the local economy; how they compete with local business and how they can, in fact, drive businesses that provide good-paying jobs out of town. But I think what convinced me the most of all their arguments is what business leaders say about it all. So I will give you one extended quote they provide. A Pittsburgh executive, they talked to, reflected "Sports... you can argue over the numbers, but they are just not economic generators. If you had $100 million to spend in the region and wanted to get the most impact, sports wouldn't do it. It's not like it's creating a lot of jobs. You know, the Steelers won all those Super Bowls when the steel mills were pulling out of town." (p. 160) And, of course, we know what happened to some of the localities they profiled. In 2010 Business Insider named San Diego as the city most likely city to go bankrupt in 2011. (San Diego avoided that fate in 2011 by making some truly draconian cuts but that has not assuaged the business community who think San Diego is still on the verge of bankruptcy.) Hamilton County, meanwhile, had to sell its public safety hospital to pay for its arenas. The Pittsburgh executive was right. Arenas are not good for the local economy. And yet they keep getting built. One analyst, the authors cite, estimated that approximately $10 billion in public funds has been spent on new arenas since the 1980s. Why?
The authors lay the blame squarely on the businesses pushing the arenas. In their narrative, the elected officials are merely the front for these large businesses although they also state that these elected officials have bought into the corporate ideology of "correct growth". Indeed, at times, this book sounds a very anti-business note that, to be honest, irritated me. I don't think either businesses or business associations are somehow nefarious. Furthermore, and perhaps I too have bought into the "corporate ideology" I do think that businesses create jobs and I would like to see more businesses come to my city. On top of which, even the authors recognize (though in a kind of oh-by-the-way manner) that arenas are not necessarily at the top of the business leaders' wish lists. They "were told by business leaders in several cities that the office sector would benefit most from improvements that were not stadium-related: enhancing Internet infrastructure, nurturing small business development through seed money, improving education beyond the most basic skills, and developing reliable and affordable mass transit. These kinds of improvements, however, are far less sexy, far less visible, and therefore far less attractive to politicians." (p. 192) Politicians, then had at least as much say over what got developed as did the business community. They weren't mindless marionettes manipulated behind the scenes. It's even possible that researchers who had been friendlier to the business community might have discovered that business leaders in some of the cities may have settled for the development they could get rather than the development they really wanted. In any event, it seems that the voters were right to throw the bums out.
This is not to say that the business community is not important in all of this; but it does suggest that the authors' resignation to businesses abusing cities and the democratic process (they recommend boycotting businesses that sponsor arenas rather than going to the ballot) may be misplaced. The politicians may be the real problem here.
That being said, if there is a proposed arena in your city and you think it's a bad idea, I recommend this book. It will help you frame your arguments. And if you're a researcher or a student trying to work out why we are spending billions of dollars on stadiums at a time like this, this eminently readable book begins to get at some of the right questions. It is therefore, to my mind, invaluable.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By Selqet
Format:Paperback
A very thorough scholarly analysis, and yet, quite an easy read. I recommend this book to any baseball fan, who is also a taxpayer and a voter. I also suggest that you read Curry, T., K. Schwirian, and R. Woldoff. 2004. High Stakes: Bigtime Sports and Downtown Redevelopment (Urban Life and Urban Landscape), after you finish with this book.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book
This saler provide great packages, fast shipping. ! The book comes out new and no damaged at all. I am going to suggeest others about this saler
Published 16 months ago by PNCaK3
4.0 out of 5 stars
Public Dollars, Private Stadiums
Well thought out and articulated arguments for part of what ills many cities and society as a whole. (And this is coming from a sports fan. Read more
Published on June 18, 2008 by Gregory Pienkowski
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding Expose
This book was an eye opener on the shady practices employed by state and city governments in securing public financing for PRIVATELY owned stadiums. Read more
Published on December 18, 2007 by Daniel Messick
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 19
books:
See all 19 books this book cites
- Nuclear Power and Social Power by Rick Eckstein in Back Matter, and Index
- The Sociological Imagination by C. Wright Mills in Back Matter
- Stadium Games: Fifty Years of Big League Greed and Bush League Boondoggles by Jay Weiner in Back Matter
- American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony by Samuel P. Huntington in Back Matter
- Prison Notebooks, Volume 3 (vol. 3) by Antonio Gramsci in Back Matter
See all 19 books this book cites
Books on Related Topics
(learn more)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Listmania!
So You'd Like to...
Look for Similar Items by Category
- Books > Business & Investing > Economics > Public Finance
- Books > Business & Investing > Industries & Professions > Service
- Books > Business & Investing > Industries & Professions > Sports & Entertainment
- Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Public Affairs & Policy > City Planning & Urban Development
- Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Urban Planning & Development
- Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Sociology > Urban
- Books > Sports & Outdoors > Miscellaneous > History of Sports
