Remember back when proponents of publicly-funded ballparks used to say that, if the parks were built, commercial development would stampede to the vicinity? That hasn't worked so well, and in recent years, the pitch has morphed into proposals for quasi-public "ballpark village" projects designed to force what hasn't happened naturally. For the most part, these things seem to be dead virtually the moment they're announced.
But not all is lost! In the face of long odds and a crushingly bad real estate market, St. Louis' long-planned, long-delayed Ballpark Village has finally gotten off the ground.
Unfortunately for Cardinals fans, they will have to wait until 2010 to dine at Cheesecake Factory or shop at a Barnes & Noble before taking in a ballgame.
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Meh... nearly all the research shows that when you take away all the propaganda numbers the teams like to throw around, there is negligible new economic impact for a new stadium (especially at the MLB level) even if all that crap gets built around it.
That's why the stadium proponents started throwing out all the intangible arguments like "community" and "civic pride" so that the economists and sociologists would have a much harder time poking numerical holes in their BS arguments.
These owners essentially want fans to pay for the stadium twice... once with taxes and another time with ticket revenue. It angers up the blood, I tells ya.
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