MIAMI | Development Thread

[vasklar]

Point taken. However, let's examine an example closer to home-- the American Airlines Arena. Every time there is a game or a concert, downtown Miami fills up with people and with traffic. Unfortunately, most of them jam pack the area right around the arena during game time, mainly spending money on parking in the surrounding lots. Once the game is over, they get right back in their cars or on the train, and depending on whether or not the home team won, they will either head to South Beach/the Grove to celebrate, or to their homes depressed that their team lost.

Sports venues do bring people to downtown, and there may be a modest increase in the downtown economy due to the rare sportsfan that may stay in the area to shop or eat. But most will be too tired and too drained economically after a game to stay in the area. Their stomachs will be full with pretzels and hot dogs, and they will be tired from a long game and lots of beer.

Instead of attaining the modest gains that a stadium would bring the downtown economy (not too mention the huge eyesore that a stadium creates without any real pedestrian/street-level commercial venues) it would be better to put that ammount of land to use retaining residents in the area 24/7. Given the current lack of any affordable housing downtown, it may be wiser to develop middle and low income subsidized housing in the area. These people will shop and live in the area, utilizing its grocery stores, hamburger joints, parks, restaurants on occassion, delis, etc. A thriving city cannot be built for the economic elite alone, nor solely for pilgramaging sports fans.