How Pro Sports Saved A City's Downtown

[emu steve]

EDIT: I would like to insert "helped" in front of the word, saved...

There has been many discussions of how sports stadia and arenas have been good for an area or simply some big building sitting out there when events are not being held.

Everyone likes to pick their own 'case studies.'

However, when discussing it as it pertains to Detroit, Detroit, itself, is a great shining case study of how sports facilities has played a major role in a downtown area.

Here is what I have come up with:

I was thinking of 'economic development' over the decades:

1). The Fox,

2). Comerica Park, home of the Tigers,

3). Ford Field, home, again, of the DETROIT Lions,

4). Super Bowl,

5). Dan Gilbert goes big in Detroit,

6). LCA, home of the Red Wings,

7). LCA, home, again, of the DETROIT Pistons

8). District Detroit, home of our four pro teams and maybe soccer, too.

I see a common thread in these seven or eight, namely, the economic development effects of pro sports in Detroit.

But, maybe more significantly, is the sequential nature of them and how the they all build on each other. Other than the Fox, all have/are happening within the last 20 years.

Without the Fox, the Ilitches would not have been in Detroit. Without Comerica Park, there wouldn't be a Ford Field [[I read that there was joint planning that Ford Field was dependent on Comerica).

And folks seem to forget, and deny [[as the case may be), that Ford Field brought Detroit a Super Bowl. The city was stimulated and prepared and revitalized by it. Was the Super Bowl preparation the beginning of the downtown revival?

A few years later, a man named Dan came to town...

The salient question here is would Dan have come to town if the Super Bowl had not energized the downtown area????

Will Detroit become the model for sports facilities and development? [[there have been stories that Redskins want to move back to D.C. to the area where RFK stadium sits and want to build a huge development. The owner of the Capitals and Wizards suggested they might want to move there as well in the future. D.C. would have the Redskins, Capitals and Wizards together on one site and the Nationals and D.C. United [soccer team] on another.) That would revitalize several major neighborhoods: "near South East [[and the desolate part of South West" [[Nationals/D.C. United) and Capitol Hill extended.