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Motor City Gamble: Three Casinos To Be Built In Downtown Detroit

Posted by: Mike Lydon

10 April 2006 - 5:00am

The City of Detroit plans to add three new casinos and thousand of jobs to its core by 2008. City officials are betting on the new mega-complexes to draw more visitors to the struggling downtown.

"MGM Grand Detroit Casino's permanent complex has a $765-million price tag, making it Michigan's largest current construction project and dwarfing the price tags of both of Detroit's new pro sports stadiums and Compuware's downtown headquarters.

MGM Grand spokesman Bob Berg said the 17-story casino complex would create an additional 1,000 permanent jobs for workers in the hotel, restaurants and retail stores that are expected to be part of the development. The casino already employs 2,500 workers.

A spokesman for Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said Thursday that MGM's massive investment is exactly what the city needs as it tries to rebuild itself.

'MGM recognizes that the city of Detroit is on the verge of being a destination location,' said spokesman Jamaine Dickens. 'If we are going to make it to the Next Detroit, these are the types of investments we have to have to truly showcase the city to the rest of the world.'"

Full Story: MGM Bets Big on Detroit
Source: The Detroit Free Press, April 7, 2006
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All of that only scratches the surface of what's wrong with this study. The idea that complex urban development patterns and human behavior can be meaningfully studied according to one primary criteria — density — is wrong from the start.
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