D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams has turned to baseball to solve the city’s woes. Last week, District representatives pled their case to the owners of the Montreal Expos to convince them to move the team to the District instead of one the other proposed sites, either Northern Virginia or Portland, Ore.
The big question on D.C. City Council members’ and community activists’ minds is whether or not a new stadium would spur the type of development the city needs at this time. The mayor obviously thinks so. Following the lead of mayors of other problem plagued cities like Cleveland and Detroit, Williams hopes a new stadium would encourage development, increase tax revenue and draw suburbanites back into the city. Williams’ logic has some merit: new stadiums help redevelop run-down areas, create jobs, encourage entertainment venues like bars and restaurants, and put a polished look on a city’s skyline. The construction of a new stadium also happens to look damn good on an outgoing mayor’s resume, although some accuse Williams of spending more time worrying about cementing his place in the history books than he does worrying about the less glorious but important issues that face the city.
While these critics may be giving the mayor less credit than he deserves, they raise some interesting issues. Who benefits, exactly, from a new stadium? Baseball team owners do, for sure. A new stadium means new facilities which means increased ticket, food and merchandise sales, which means more money in their pockets.
Williams argues that the people of the city benefit as well; jobs are created, the tax base increases through ticket, food and merchandise taxes and the city’s entertainment sector flourishes.
How well will these benefits reach the people of the city, though? Although a job selling peanuts is a job, how much upward mobility is possible? Is a stadium really a quality job source for District residents?
Taxes raked in from the stadium will most likely end up being used for stadium upkeep. With strikes looming on baseball’s horizon, the taxable benefits of a new team wane.
And should bolstering the city’s entertainment sector really be a top priority? Our city’s AIDS epidemic has been compared to that of an African country. Our government doesn’t provide enough paper to schools to last the whole school year. Increasing gentrification of neighborhoods is systematically displacing more and more low income families.
When looking at the big picture, AIDS, paper supplies and gentrification seem worlds away from baseball. Those problems are going to exist whether we build a new stadium or not, so why not go for it? It’s an understandable viewpoint. But why not dedicate our resources to improving the infrastructure of our city before worrying about baseball? True, baseball is an American pastime, but so is guaranteeing a standard quality of life for our citizens.
