A New Urban Revitilization Strategy: Casinos

"Joliett, Ill. — Joliet's listless black canal once carried treated sewage from Chicago, 40 miles to the north, through the core of a decrepit downtown where gangs roamed freely. Well into the 1980's, with the city's steel and machinery factories vanishing, unemployment reached 20 percent. About the only noteworthy thing left in Joliet was its maximum- security state prison.But in a single decade, this once- dismal relic of the rust belt has burst into the ranks of the nation's boom towns." The implications for urban revitlization and policy are dramatic. Is the future of urban economic development in casinos? "Though the downtown is lined with abandoned stores, the canal has been cleaned. Nobody calls it the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal anymore; it is the Des Plaines River. Ground has been broken on a minor league baseball stadium. Renovation of the abandoned Louis Joliet Hotel into 60 apartments is under way, and a sports bar will soon open in the restored but still barren Union Station."

Thanks to Chris Steins