Convention Center A Bad Investment For Taxpayer Dollars

In his recent op-ed, New America Foundation senior fellow Joel Kotkin argues that a new plan to build a major convention center hotel and residential complex in downtown Los Angeles with the help taxpayer subsides, is another misguided attempt to transform the city's center while enriching developers.

"The simple truth is that convention centers are rarely a good public investment. A definitive national study by the Brookings Institution, released last year, found that they frequently operate at a loss, including the recently expanded centers in Washington and St. Louis. In most cases, their much-ballyhooed effect on the local economy â€" new private investment, more jobs and increased levels of tourism â€" "has simply not occurred," reported Heywood Sanders, the study's author."