There will always be cities willing to drop bank on a job/entertainment creator like a pro-sports team.
Amen. I mean, if the public funded it, then how come they cant use it for free and have ot pay to enter if they funded the construction. This is almost as bad a scam as insurance companies....
The differences are pretty obvious. I can think of two right off the top of my head: Scale. Building a new store is not a massive undertaking. Commercial space is readily built and a commodity, to a great extent. Even if/when Nordstrom built a building itself, it would be a small fraction of the cost of building an arena. Supply and demand. The number of sports teams is very, very limited... and the demand is high across the country. It's fair to think of it as a "race to the bottom" as cities and states vie for professional sports teams, but it's just part of real life. Amazon will get an awesome deal from some city when they build their second headquarters for similar reasons. With all of this being said, Seattle might not participate in this sort of support for an arena if it means passing along to (non-events attending) taxpayers. I live about ten blocks from the Key and I think it would be great to get it updated, but I'm not looking forward to the construction. #richcityproblems
