Super Bowl Bid Results In Community Revitalization

Indianapolis' Super Bowl bid included the Near Eastside neigborhood, a recreation center and other community improvements aimed at revitalizing the lagging neighborhood, according to Jamie Duffy of The New York Times.

"...[T]he biggest beneficiary has been the Near Eastside, a 44-square-block area a mile east of downtown. With high rates of crime and poverty and a foreclosure rate that led the nation in 2004, the neighborhood had trouble even attracting a grocery store to serve its 40,000 residents. Fortune smiled on the area when Mark Miles, the board chairman of the Super Bowl Host Committee, decided the neighborhood would become part of the 2008 bid, after Indianapolis lost out the previous year to Dallas.

The NFL contributes $1 million to the Super Bowl host "to build a community center that it calls a Youth Education Town, with the stipulation that the grant be matched." Other improvements have included infrastructure, retail, school athletic facilities, and new housing.

Thanks to Cathie Pagano