[ardecila]

^ Good to see. I'm still not convinced that casino gambling is the silver bullet for our fiscal problems, but if done smartly it could at least provide some boost to the city's bottom line.

I doubt we'll see any further movement on the casino this year as operators are not in an expansion mode, but perhaps next year the city will be able to launch a formal RFP. I'd rather see a process where developers are allowed to choose their own site and have the location be part of the evaluation.

My fear is that we end up with a suburban style casino in the wrong spot, like in Detroit, Pittsburgh, St Louis or Cincinnati. Those poor decisions will stymie downtown development and do not really help the brand of a thriving downtown. Boston got a suburban casino, but put it in an industrial area of Everett which is okay. Detroit's Greektown Casino and New Orleans Harrah's are better examples of downtown casinos but still leave MUCH to be desired. If operators will insist on a suburban design then we should at least put the casino in some industrial area on the South Branch, or next to Sox Park. A more urban design opens up many other options for location - Motor Row, Fulton Market, United Center area, Goose Island, etc. Macau has a lot of smaller casinos that fit into urban neighborhoods and could be a good model.