Florida: Casinos Bring Financial and Economic Disaster

As Revel in Atlantic City moves through bankruptcy proceedings, the resort lays off 83 employees, or 2.5 percent of its workforce. For whatever reason, the entire state of New Jersey suffered a collective hallucination that Revel would save the shore, and instead we’re reading sentences like this:

At its first bankruptcy court hearing last month, a lawyer for Revel told a judge that the casino was within days of running out of money…

But at least Revel isn’t downtown, as is proposed for Philadelphia and Toronto. Urban planner Richard Florida has a piece in Huffington Post about downtown casinos, and he thinks they’re just awful:

Business leaders like to think that they are helping to build a great global city, but casino building is city-ruining of the highest order. Virtually every serious study that has ever been done of the economic impacts of casinos shows that their costs far exceed their benefits and that they are a poor use of precious downtown land. A downtown casino will tear holes in Toronto’s urban fabric, create more costs than benefits, and as surely as if it’s holding up a giant sign, will send the message that Toronto is on the wrong track.

God only know what it would do to our fabric here. It’s much more pilly than Toronto’s.

• Revel lays off 83 casino workers [Courier-Post]
• Casinos Ruin Cities [HuffPost]