So now we’ll do city planning by opinion poll.
The Democrat and Chronicle, WOKR TV, and
WXXI had the polling company Zogby International ask MonroeCounty residents whether they want
a casino, and the answer, apparently, is a fairly strong yes.
A slight
majority — 51 percent — want one. Only 38 percent don’t. The rest are
undecided.
Governor
Pataki has said that he wouldn’t agree to developer Tom Wilmot’s casino plan
unless there was community support. Well, crowed the D&C editorial page on Sunday, there is support. The D&C’s own
poll says so.
This is
just absurd.
I’m willing
to keep an open mind about casinos, and I realize that in some other regions,
they’ve been an economic boost. But first of all, the genesis of this
particular scheme makes me twitchy. Hatched in secret negotiations between the
governor, Wilmot, and the Seneca-Cayuga Indian tribe, it seemed to be roaring
ahead — although even the mayor wasn’t able to get information about it from
the governor.
Now, the
governor says there are no
negotiations. Our local daily, becoming newsmaker as well as news reporter with
its poll, is urging the governor to keep the door open.
Certainly
any idea for improving this sad economy is worth studying. And certainly the
opinion of an informed public is important.
But Zogby
didn’t poll an informed public. And the poll itself was simplistic. Basically,
it asked you whether you favor a casino in Monroe County, where it should be
located, what its main benefit and problem would be, whether you would use it,
and if so, for what (entertainment, gambling, restaurants, shopping).
This is very hypothetical stuff. How
hypothetical? More than 17 percent of the people who responded to the poll said
they would go to the casino for shopping — almost as many as said they would
go there for gambling (19.6 percent). What kind of shopping? Who knows?
Monrovians just like to shop.
And how
about this: the casino’s biggest attraction (drawing 27 percent) would be
“entertainment.” What kind of entertainment? The seductive entertainment of the
bells and whistles of slot machines? Las Vegas-type, super-star music and
comedy acts?
No matter.
Now we know that Monrovians want a casino. And we know what they’d do there.
What if Zogby had
asked questions that were a bit more complicated? What if Zogby had put the
questions in some context?
What if,
for instance, Zogby had asked questions like these:
• If you
learned that a casino would probably drain business from nearby bars, clubs,
and restaurants, forcing some of them out of business, would you support a
casino?
• If you
learned that a casino hotel might drain business from other downtown hotels,
which already have occupancy problems, would you support a casino?
• If you
learned that by driving other downtown establishments out of business, the
casino would lead to more empty buildings and lower property values downtown,
would you support a casino?
The
casino’s threats to other downtown businesses are cited in a recent study by
the Center for Governmental Research. (See this newspaper’s report, “Win? Lose?
Draw?,” July 7, available on the web, www.rochester-citynews.com. And the
report itself is available at www.cgr.org.)
If the
casino did drive other downtown businesses under, warns the CGR report,
“the benefit of addressing blight at Sibley and Midtown would be partially
undone by shifting the blight to business locations now viable.”
And what if
Zogby reminded us that the casino and hotel would remove two large downtown
properties from the tax rolls, and that our taxes would increase to make up the
difference? Would we still support a casino?
Dangers
like these have been all but buried by the Democrat
and Chronicle’s hype of the Wilmot proposal. And the local business leaders
who are embracing the casino idea apparently don’t care much about the dangers,
either.
Then there
are the risky projections for the casino itself. We’ll get the economic boosts
everybody’s raving about only if the Wilmot casino is successful. And, the CGR
study warned, that’s increasingly speculative given the proliferation of
casinos in Upstate New York.
And there’s the irony: one of the big reasons supporters give for wanting a casino is that everybody
else has one. Forget about the unique attributes we used to brag about. Follow
the crowd.
It’s hard
to watch what’s been happening elsewhere. This month Chicago
has been celebrating the completion of its massive MillenniumPark, an astonishing collection of
work and landscaping by internationally known architects and artists. A Wall Street Journal article on how the
project came about describes the public and private fund-raising — and the
growth of MillenniumPark
from a $30 million proposal to the final $475 million.
How’d Chicago
do that? The project’s promoters and fundraisers thought big. Journal writer Joel Henning cites a quote attributed to Daniel
Burnham, the architect for Chicago’s
World Columbia Exposition and one of the originators of Chicago’s
important early city plan. “Make no little plans,” Burnham is supposed to have
said. “They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not
be realized. Make big plans.”
Sure, Rochester’s
not Chicago. But there’s plenty in Rochester
from which to fashion big plans: water, exquisite natural beauty, a temperate
climate, an amazing collection of educational and cultural institutions,
artists, museums, and actors.
Other
cities have done far more with far less. San Antonio
has turned itself from a relative backwater in a steamy climate into an
economic powerhouse and tourist attraction — because one man had big thoughts
about its river. Austin launched megagrowth
with a large university, a music festival, and public and business officials
who thought big.
But in Rochester,
we’ve got our eyes on a casino.
I am
getting really tired of this. And discouraged. It’s all so very, very Rochester.
Must be
something in the water.
This article appears in Jul 28 – Aug 3, 2004.
