The men's restroom is closed. I ended up peeing behind the building, Brigham City Rest Area, I-15, Box Elder County, Utah | Tourist Services, Public Art

They should have brought in porta potties.  You see the world differently when one of your medications for heart disease is a diuretic (I actually take two different ones).

It might have been because the building seems like it is still under construction on the interior?  

The building was closed but the restrooms are to the side and were theoretically open.  The women's and a family restroom.  Men were directed to the family restroom.  I couldn't wait the line was long.

Many of the convenience stores in the Intermountain region have restrooms, as they are positioned to serve longer distance travelers.  Even in cities, Maverik convenience stores have restrooms.

But we stopped at one place, two stalls, one each for men and women.  

The line was so long, I decided it was easier to go to the gas station on the other side of the freeway--where the wait was blissfully short.

Alas, the Texaco brand is no longer in business.  They marketed clean restrooms as a featured element.  This ad is from 1941.

The Brigham City rest stop had some decent amenities, including a pollinator garden and a small fenced in pet area for small dogs.

The pollinator garden is an extension of my concept that we should plan for public art when building structures in parks, but in public buildings more generally ("Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Five | Planning for Public Art as an element of park facilities"). 

This case being purposeful landscaping that satisfies multiple constituencies, even insects (fauna).

Some municipalities like NYC have a percent for art program where they incorporate public art into new buildings.  This should be extended to landscaping.

In Utah, many public and private properties have nice plantings as part of their parking lots.  Years ago, I was blown away when then Mayor Sheila Dixon of Baltimore had herbs that people could pick as part of the landscaping at City Hall.

The Pollinator Garden at the Brigham City Rest Area on I-15 in Box Elder County, Utah was planted recently.

But it doesn't have to be complicated.  An elementary school in Hailey, Idaho has a small mural on the backside of the building.

And they've incorporated public art into bus shelter stops on Woodside Boulevard, which is served by the Mountain Rides Transit System, which like buses in a lot of resort areas (Sun Valley) is free, primarily as a transportation demand management strategy for employee transportation, to reduce demand for parking vis a vis "higher value tourists".  Also see "Bus stops as neighborhood focal points and opportunities for placemaking."

Another way to think about it is what Project for Public Spaces calls the "Power of 10" and how at different scales--city, neighborhood, destination, place--you need 10 things to do.

This Hailey bus stop also has a Little Free Library--and I snagged a couple myself.  

So three things to do (wait for the bus, look at the public art, browse the Little Free Library.  Considering this wasn't a primary arterial, that's pretty good.

Learning from anywhere and everywhere.  When I first got involved in the Main Street commercial district revitalization program in the DC neighborhood of H Street NE (""The community development approach and the revitalization of DC's H Street corridor: congruent or oppositional approaches?"), members from various programs across the city got some support to attend the national conference.  Early on it was in Baltimore.  

Most of the people from DC's "urban programs" were haughty with the "small town" problems, believing they had nothing to learn from them.  I argued that the programs weren't "all of DC" but smaller commercial districts outside of Downtown, and they were equal or smaller in size compared to many of the other programs.

I've always had the attitude I can learn from anywhere.  Ketchum, Idaho, where the Sun Valley Ski Resort is, and nearby towns like Hailey had plenty of best practice and/or provocative ideas that hit me at a good time, when I was in the midst of writing a large grant for a playground for Sugar House Park in Salt Lake.

My original concept had everything but the kitchen sink.  I joked there was a fine line between a playground and an amusement park.  Urban design features in both towns, plus Sun Valley, helped me look at my concept with fresher eyes, and the recognition that it needed "editing" and refinement.

Some elements make less sense now.  Other elements take on a new prominence.  But still editing and "simplification" of a sort--still a complicated project, but less cluttered, less full of stuff, and "cleaner" and better.

Definition of insanity, National Parks/federal government shutdown

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.

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For almost 15 years, I've written entries about how local governments need to do scenario planning vis a vis state and federal government installations in their cities, similarly states vis a vis the federal government.

This was spurred by federal government shutdowns leading to the closure of national parks, the impact on states and local governments, and their plaintive calls for opening the parks.  But also because of the impact on parks in DC, where the National Park Service runs a majority of the city's parks.

-- "Contingency planning in parks planning: Montgomery County Maryland edition," 2013
-- "Federal shutdown as another example of why local jurisdictions should have more robust contingency and master planning processes," 2013

This comes up with the SF Chronicle article, "Tourists from around the world blindsided by Muir Woods closure."

On any given year, Muir Woods National Monument draws hundreds of thousands of visitors from all over the world to take in the pristine views, trails and wildlife that make up one of the last ancient redwood forests left in the Bay Area.

On Wednesday, however, tourists were greeted by an unexpected sight at the entrance: a sign informing them the Marin County park was “closed due to a lapse in appropriations” after the federal government shutdown went into effect at 12:01 that morning. A ranger on duty stood in front of a growing line of cars and tried to offer alternative nearby parks for them to visit, but there was no way around the disappointment. The reservations many of the visitors had booked months in advance had been cancelled.

The thing is, there is a system where states (or local) governments can pay to keep parks open.

It's not like this hasn't happened before.

Tourists might be blindsided by this.  Local and state governments have no excuse.

Just like in 2013, the State of Utah is stepping in to fund national parks ("Utah will fund national parks amid government shutdown. Here’s what it will keep open," Salt Lake Tribune).  

Visitors may have better luck accessing information soon, though. The state of Utah is stepping in to keep national parks open, including visitor centers, which act as central hubs of information.

The Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity is dedicating funds to cover visitor center costs in Utah’s five national parks, as well as Cedar Breaks National Monument, according to a Friday news release. “Utah’s National Parks will remain open,” said Natalie Randall, director of the Utah Office of Tourism and Film. “We are committed to supporting visitors in planning and preparing for their best trip to Utah, preserving our parks, and ensuring Utah communities and businesses that rely on national park visitation are supported.”

The National Park Service has estimated that it costs $8,000 per day to operate visitor centers at Utah’s five national parks and Cedar Breaks National Monument, according to a statement from Randall. “This is a fiscally responsible decision and we will continue to evaluate, as national parks visitor centers serve as an essential hub for visitor safety, sanitation, and public security,” she said.

Not California.

According to the SLT article, the daily cost to keep multiple parks open isn't very much.  So there isn't really an excuse except for lack of planning.

Note that the Republicans understand that closing parks is bad for them, given how "front facing" they are as public assets and places where citizens go to recreate.  So they try to keep them open, skating on the law ("National Parks Told to Remain Open During Shutdown Despite Risks," Bloomberg).

Spring break must be different today...

 

Narcan is handed out Saturday March 8, 2025 on Fort Lauderdale beach to combat drug overdoses during Spring break. .(Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

From "Scenes from Spring Break 2025 on Fort Lauderdale Beach."

Crime has always been an issue with spring breaks.  Assaults, robberies, sometimes murder, and general mayhem, which is why some communities have worked to de-emphasize the "holiday" ("Florida police issue 'spring break reality check': Visit but follow the rules," USA Today).

Florida had more than 140 million visitors in the 2024 spring break season, Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference Thursday. Miami joins Fort Lauderdale and Orlando in the top five most popular domestic destinations for spring break travel according to AAA.

But when the world was beginning to emerge from the pandemic in 2021, partiers flocked to Miami Beach and law enforcement was overwhelmed with more than 1,000 arrests. The following year, several people were injured in shootings. Last year, Miami Beach said they were "breaking up" with spring break

Although out of 140 million, I guess the crime statistics aren't so bad.

 Free Narcan takes it to another dimension.  What about warm water and sun to those of us in colder climes?

Esso gasoline station road map, Tennessee and Kentucky, 1956, showing the Lookout Mountain Incline Railway funicular in Chattanooga on the cover

 I am always intrigued by the very rare occurrence of gasoline station roadmaps that show "transit."  

I have Esso maps with a map of the London Underground, at least two New York City maps (Esso, Texaco) showing the Manhattan part of the NYC Subway, this map, an Exxon Map showing public transportation of the United States, along with highways, and and British American Oil map of Toronto with a small drawing of a TTC subway entrance.  There is an Esso map for Alberta that I haven't acquired yet showing a cable car for skiing related transportation, as part of the set of drawings on the cover.

An inset on the inside of the map reads:

The front cover of this map shows one of the cars of the Incline Railway ascending to the summit of historic Lookout Mountain, Chattanooga, Tenn.  Through wide windows and glass roofs, passengers gain startling views of the city and the Moccasin Bend of the Tennessee River.  Equipped with numerous safety devices, the cars are hauled by cable simultaneously in opposite directions, passing at a midway station.  The Incline Railway operates daily, 6am to midnight.  One way fare is 35 cents, round trip 65 cents. 

This is also cool because it includes an inset on the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and a map of the TVA lakes/recreational facilities.   Interestingly, it's produced by Standard Oil of New Jersey (Esso), separate from Standard Oil of Kentucky--later acquired by Standard Oil of California (Chevron)--which produced its own maps too.

These kinds of maps date to what Peter Muller calls the "Recreational Auto Era" of urban form, when people stayed pretty close to home, but when they drove distances it was generally for tourism or to visit friends and relatives.  

Interstate Highway and US Highway road signs, Greensboro, NC.

This era was from 1921 to the 1950s.  During the RAE people drove on state roads and federal highways (the US roads).  Interstate Freeways didn't exist then, and when they started being constructed is when urban form shifted from a focus on the center city to the metropolitan area, knitted together by freeways.

The maps reflect this desire in a couple ways.  First, back then most of the large chains had touring services that would provide travel and route information.  Those services ended in the early 1980s.  Two gasoline price crises in the 1970s led to changes in the gasoline sales business model.  

They shifted to selling gas as a fungible commodity and were no longer so focused on developing "the brand" and working to have loyal customers focused on the brand.

Second, RAE maps usually include inserts and drawings of places worth visiting, like the Smoky Mountain inset.  Third, although it varied, some firms showed local scenes on the cover of the map, from the states the map covers.  But sometimes they alternated this and definitely later as the US moved into the "Metropolitan City" era, cover art focused on branding of the chain, not local landmarks.

One map I haven't yet acquired from the Esso Kentucky/Tennessee maps shows an Atomic Energy Museum on the cover, sponsored by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which produced electricity from dams and nuclear power plants.  Also, a key facility for the production of nuclear weapons in WWII was in Kingsport, Tennessee.

A unified National Park Service Visitor Center for DC (and the region)

In writings on developing a city visitor network ("National Tourism and Travel Week 2019: DC recap | DC needs a tourism development and management plan"), including comments on the DC Federal Elements Comprehensive Plan on Visitor Services, I suggested that there should be a unified NPS visitor center for the region ("World Tourism Day: In terms of providing great visitor services, is DC being a highly visited tourism destination a good or a bad thing?"), because there are so many different NPS facilities.

One of the problems of NPS visitor centers at sites is they tend to be hermetic in that they only provide information for that site.

I was surprised when I visited Glen Canyon Dam to come across an NPS visitor brochure entitled "Experience National Parks in Arizona," listing all the parks, monuments and other installations across the state.  

I have never seen such a brochure in the DC area.  And note I didn't see this brochure at another Arizona NPS monument.

It turns out there are similar regionally focused brochures for Alaska, Atlanta, Colorado, the parks of the New York Harbor, the Midwest, and the West's Intermountain Region, among others. 

For the DC area, more recently referred to as the DMV--DC, Maryland, and Virginia--there should be a DC Brochure, like the Discover Atlanta, like the one for the Baltimore National Heritage Area,* or the New York Harbor, probably other National Heritage Areas, as well as the regional brochures.

-- NPS brochures website

And guess what, there is/was, although I've never seen it in print, Guide to Greater Washington National Parks.  It probably dates to 2002, given the LL Bean--the sponsor--tagline of their 90th anniversary.  

There is also Washington: The Nation's Capital.  So maybe my memory isn't the greatest...  Shockingly, this version shows the Metrorail map.

Note that another problem with NPS is that individual visitor information desks don't distribute information from non federal agencies, like local tourist organizations, and pretty much not even other federal agencies like the Forest Service or BLM.

The Carl Hayden Visitor Center at Glen Canyon Dam in Page, Arizona.

Anyway, there probably should be more than one such integrated NPS visitor center in the DC region.  The one at Glen Canyon Dam had exhibits and a gift shop and is jointly run by NPS and the Bureau of Reclamation.

Note that years ago on Ebay I saw a photo of a "national" information center in DC in the 1940s, but I failed to buy it.

Baltimore, independent of the Heritage Area, has a nice visitor center on the Inner Harbor.  DC just doesn't come anywhere near having such an equivalent.  According to this past blog entry from 2006, "Baltimore City Visitor Center has enviable financial return," the economic return from the Baltimore center was over $3.5 million annually.

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* For years, I've argued DC should present and manage itself as a heritage area whether or not it is actually designated as one.  The Baltimore National Heritage Area brochure is a nice example of how to do it.  This should include visitor marketing, but also the management of heritage (historic preservation), including more expanded building protections.

Gambling as an urban race to the bottom: Richmond; DC

Alfred C. Liggins III, CEO of Urban One, in Richmond on Aug. 11. (Julia Rendleman/The Washington Post) 

I wrote about this recently ("Casinos as economic development: destination versus casual visitation" and "More sports and revitalization: Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore") but the ongoing the process to approve the creation of a casino in Richmond Virginia ("A Black-owned casino bets on a Black neighborhood in the former capital of the Confederacy," ) brings up some interesting issues about access and "equity" because the operator chosen to create a casino if approved in this November's referendum is Alfred Liggins, a prominent African-American businessman based in the DC area, who leads the Urban One broadcast business--radio stations focused on black demographics and the TV One cable channel--which grew out of the WOL-AM station in DC (when I first moved to DC in 1987 their studio was at the end of the block on H Street, it had a window so you could see the DJ booth).

With the exception of Native American-run casinos, most are run by large corporations led by white people.  Isn't it a matter of equity for African-American business interests to get a piece of the action?

-- "Building supportive ecosystems for Black-owned US businesses," McKinsey
-- "$290 BILLION WOULD BE CREATED IN BLACK WEALTH IF THE REVENUE GAP BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE BUSINESSES WAS EQUAL," Black Enterprise Magazine

Springfield Massachusetts casino as an analogue.  But as pointed out in the previous pieces, the average city doesn't benefit much from this.  I think Richmond is similar to Springfield, Massachusetts--Richmond has more residents, both are within a couple hours of major cities, have some train service, and a number of attractions.

An event outside the MGM Casino brings people to the streets of Springfield.

While Springfield claims significant impact even though the casino has only been open for a couple years and was more recently affected by the pandemic ("TWO YEARS AFTER MGM SPRINGFIELD OPENED, ECONOMIC BENEFITS NOTED BUT NO INCREASE IN PROBLEM GAMBLING DETECTED," U Mass Amherst) I wonder how much will really happen?

OTOH, I guess if the casino is part of a wide ranging revitalization program, maybe it would be different, and maybe that's the case in Springfield.  But I wouldn't expect much there, or in Richmond.  From the Worcester Daily Voice article "Did Springfield Cash In? See How Much Visitors To MGM Have Spent Locally":

The Donahue Institute estimated that MGM visitors accounted for $66.3 million in new, off-site spending at local restaurants, shops, grocers, fuel stations, and more. “One of the big findings we have is that 61.7 percent of patron spending was new to the state and would not have occurred had it not been for the casino,” said Thomas Peake senior research analyst at the UMass Donahue Institute in a statement. ...

However, when MGM was selling Springfield on the casino, developers said MGM would create 3,000 new jobs and generate $35 million in revenue per month. The casino peaked in its first full month of operations at just under $27 million and has averaged only around $21.5 million ever since, according to CalvinAyre.com.

(Another example is the touted benefits for Richmond from being the practice site for the Washington Redskins.  Not much happened.  "VCU report: City won't recoup investment on Redskins training camp deal until at least 2023," Richmond Times-Dispatch -- use printfriendly).

The biggest problem is that the business model for "gaming" isn't designed to share customers with other venues.  They want 100% of the time and money of gamblers, outside of spending money on gas, they don't want you to leave the premises and spend money elsewhere.  That makes it hard for a "gaming" use to be multiplicative in terms of the multiplier effect and spillover economic benefits.

I wrote about this in terms of Walmart ("Jumping in bed with the devil--it's hot, but will you survive the heat?," 2006), the same points pertain.

The problem with Wal-Mart isn't so much that it is a behemoth store. The problem is their business model, which appears to be designed to capture as much as 100%* of the average customer's retail expenditure dollars. That doesn't leave much room, even crumbs, for other businesses. (* or more than 100% if you consider credit cards...)

Gambet DC: DC's sports gambling app. Another Post article, "D.C.'s sports betting app keeps underperforming, with lots of finger-pointing about what’s to blame," discusses the relative lack of success of a DC branded and controlled sports gambling app.  

The pitfalls are pretty obvious. (1) taking a larger cut than competitive apps. (2) there being lots of competitive websites. (3) apps for gambling for profit entities fully focused on gambling are likely to always outpace and be more exciting than "a government sponsored app" produced by a contractor.

The Gambet DC website looks like a government website.

And as is too common in city economic arguments for gambling, great success is touted while the results are significantly less buoyant.  The city initially projected revenues of $22 million annually, then the forecast shifted downward to $6 million annually.  But revenue is less than $50,000 per month.

Some types of revenue generation aren't really worth pursuing.

versus

(One of the websites listed in "Best Gambling Sites and Apps for Real Money Gambling Online")

The DC Auditor made suggestions for improvement ("D.C. auditor offers ideas for improving the city’s sports betting app," Post), but how do you create "verve" in a city agency?

-- D.C. Sports GamblingFails to Meet Expectations, DC Auditor

FWIW, I think DC Lottery created a great commercial promoting DC neighborhoods as part of a past promotion, which I thought was a way better ad promoting "visiting DC" than the ads by Destination DC ("City branding versus identity | Branding versus Urban Strategy").  

So maybe they have the potential to become much more customer-facing, as they are with lottery tickets.  Clearly those aren't the people in charge of Gambet DC.

City Break Tourism, the rental car shortage, and transit/sustainable mobility as a way to get around: Part 1

-- "City Break Tourism, the rental car shortage, and transit/sustainable mobility as a way to get around: Part 1"
-- "City Break Tourism: Part 2 | Transit Marketing"
-- "City Break Tourism: Part 3 | Urban Bicycle Tourism"

Popularized in Europe, the term "City Break Tourism" is another name for urban tourism, where low cost airlines (supplemented by an extensive rail network), allows easy and inexpensive visitation across the continent, especially for residents of the European Union, who don't need passports to travel between countries.

Thessaloniki is Greece's second largest city.  Photo: Getty.

This paper, "Development of Thessaloniki, Greece as a City Break tourism destination," is a particularly good discussion of the phenomenon.  Also see the Telegraph travel story, "How to spend 48 hours in Thessaloniki."

Getting around in European cities: cars aren't necessary.  Because most European cities have high quality local transit networks, including rail, subway, tram (either or both light rail and streetcars), bus and depending on the community, water transit plus extensive rental bike options and even car share, people doing urban tourism in those countries don't have to worry much about how to get around, they can do it mostly by foot and by transit, unless they are traveling outside of cities.

City break tourism in the US is dependent on rental cars and more recently, ride hailing.  By contrast, most people in the US aren't familiar with how to use transit, because the nation's mobility paradigm is decidedly organized around the car.  

If they don't drive to their destination, when people travel, typically they rent a car at their destination, although in the past few years use of ride hailing "services" like Uber and Lyft have also been relied upon, for a number of reasons -- people's unwillingness or unfamiliarity with transit; inadequate transit; the convenience of using a "universal" e-app rather than having to learn how to use regional taxi services in a particular community; sense of ride hailing as a luxury service, etc.

This year, it's been very difficult to rent cars, because rental car fleets shrunk precipitously because of the pandemic, the bankruptcy of Hertz, etc. ("Tales from the ‘car rental apocalypse’: How travelers are coping," Washington Post).

People are finding that without reservations, no cars are available, and in any case, the prices are outlandish, and can be hundreds of dollars per day (during the post-2008 recession we were able to rent cars for as low as $13/day).

Some people have even resorted to renting U-Haul trucks, finding it to be cheaper.

Ride hailing has been equally problematic, as a dearth of cars and drivers has led to significant cost rises ("Prepare to Pay More for Uber and Lyft Rides," New York Times), putting it out of financial reach for many users.

What about transit (and bikes)?  With few exceptions most of the media coverage on the rental car shortage doesn't suggest using transit and/or bicycles to get around on a city break tourist trip as opposed to relying on a car.   (This refers to transit services serving locals, as opposed to tourist bus services.)

This article, "9 options for when you can’t find a rental car," does mention transit,  but mostly the options discussed are vehicle based, from peer-to-peer car sharing like Getaround and Turo, to even buying a car and driving it home after your trip.

Although if you do a Google search, you can find older articles about transit-centric city tourism.  But while it's true that many cities aren't served by a good transit system, the major cities are, and it's possible to get around by subway and light rail (if it exists) and bus.  

Micromobility: Bikes and scooters.  Many cities have bike sharing systems, and it's pretty easy to get a multi-day pass to reduce the cost (many tourists don't know about that option, and rack up high fees).  If not, usually there are bike rental options available as well, on an hourly, day or multi-day basis.

Scooters are usually a separate offering from bike share, and require membership, but the advantage is that typically the same firms offer scooters in many different cities.  My personal concern is if you don't know a community and the quality of its roads, a scooter can be significantly more dangerous than a bike.

Bikes and scooters can also be an element of the tourism experience, in terms of recreational use--riding for fun--as opposed to transportation.  This is typical in beach destinations, such as Virginia Beach or Santa Monica.

Free2Move originally used GM vehicles.  But now that Peugeot has merged with Fiat Chrysler, it will be using those vehicles.

Itinerant car sharing.  Transit-centric tourism trips can be complemented by car sharing -- Zipcar is still available in many cities.  Sadly, Car2Go isn't any more.  But when it was, I used it in San Diego and Seattle as well as DC.  In DC and Portland, Free2Move is a one-way option, and the AAA-developed Gig operates in California and Seattle.  It's possible to use peer-to-peer car sharing services like Getaround and Turo too, and they are available in most places.

Taxis and ride hailing.  Personally, I don't use Uber and Lyft, but it's an option.  The advantage of those services is the app is universal, it works wherever the service is offered whereas local taxi services by definition are local.  

To use transit it helps to already know how to use transit.  So you can make sense of maps, stations, fares, passes, etc., even if you are otherwise unfamiliar with that particular system.  If you don't have experience on how to use a transit system, using transit to get around in an unfamiliar place, let alone relying upon it, can be difficult.

Transit wayfinding (and marketing).  I've argued that tourist destinations especially need to do a much better job at providing explanatory information and materials at community entrypoints--airports, railroad stations, transit stations at key destinations, and visitor centers.  Some transit agencies already do a good job.  Most don't.

And there is the tension between seeing visitors as a revenue source versus transportation demand management objectives.

For example, the Baltimore Downtown Visitor Center had a nice info center for transit, and before the Seattle Airport was served by light rail, it had a pretty good information rack about bus service.  But when they added light rail service, interestingly, the quality of information about provided about transit within the airport diminished.

Alexandria, Virginia has nice transit wayfinding signage at the King Street Metro Station and the Waterfront.

Clued into it from a fleeting image in a "Vera" television series episode, the cities of Newcastle and Gateshead in the UK have an excellent "Walk/Ride" wayfinding system in signs and maps.

-- WalkMap, Newcastle Gateshead visitation

-- Newcastle wayfinding design remit, fw.d design

Flickr photos by David Conti

Design by Cartledge Levene

The Ride side of the map would be easily repurposed as signage.  I don't know if they do that.  I seem to recall seeing the "Walk" sign in the Vera show footage, but I am not sure about Ride.  

Casinos as economic development: destination versus casual visitation

A Wall Street Journal article ("Chicago Casino Would Be a Costly Bet, Gambling Operators Say") on the process of creating a casino in Chicago, as well as recent coverage in the Baltimore Sun ("Developers hope South Baltimore entertainment district could spur tourism, casino after coronavirus pandemic") about the city's desires to create an "entertainment district" anchored by the Horseshoe Casino makes it important to distinguish the characteristics behind "gaming" as a sustainable economic development strategy.

From the Sun:

The four-block, mostly industrial stretch, known as the Warner Street corridor, could draw hundreds of thousands of visitors annually, officials said. It also might re-energize the casino, where revenue is off by about a third since 2016, amid slowing business and in the wake of the pandemic. 

Plans for the district include a 4,000-seat concert hall called The Paramount and the addition of a Topgolf driving range. At the same time, a new, outdoor iteration of Hammerjacks, the storied Baltimore nightclub and concert hall, will open nearby as a tailgating and events venue as early as this fall. 

The entertainment district may feature additional retail and dining options and a hotel once completed, those affiliated with the project said.

According to the WSJ, Chicago leaders want to capture monies spent at casinos in Indiana and elsewhere in Illinois, and would direct expected revenues of $200 million/annually to underfunded pension funds. 

Playing slots in Las Vegas.  Photo: L.E. Baskow, Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Destination versus casual gambling.  It comes down to what we might call destination gambling, typified by Las Vegas, where people go and spend a number of days versus casual gambling, where people go for a day or an evening.  Generally, destinations attract higher income demographics who spend a lot more money.

With casual gambling there are few spillover economic development opportunities, and since unless there are super strong community benefits requirements, most of the money made at the facility is repatriated to distant headquarters cities of the gaming companies (mostly in Las Vegas).

I don't think there are many examples of casual gambling places being super great economic development vehicles.  They might do okay, and generate some additional development and entertainment activity, but they aren't transformational.

Although one exception can be Native American related facilities like Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, although with the expansion of gaming in other states, revenues are down ("Facing increasingly crowded Northeast markets, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun look overseas to grow," Hartford Courant).

Another way to think about casual gambling is that it is but one entertainment option out of many: movies; a meal; a concert; a sports event; etc., and it is more a "substitution" of one type of consumption for another, unless a significant number of patrons come from outside the metropolitan economy.

Atlantic City, which outside of Nevada is the only city that has tried to reposition around gambling as a destination, with multiple casinos, has never been successful in developing its place as a destination comparable to Las Vegas, where people spend multiple days ("How Casinos Failed Atlantic City and Why They're Still Part of Its Future," The Street, Atlantic City casinos needs to adopt 'Las Vegas model' to survive" and "Can A Non-Gaming Model Work For Atlantic City Casinos As It Does In Las Vegas," Atlantic City Press).

Destination gaming supports the development of other economic activity, especially retail, but also entertainment in other ways (concerts, etc.).  By contrast, AC's attempt at developing destination retail, a shopping center by Taubman Centers, one of the nation's leading mall developers, failed spectacularly ("Luxury Mall Hits the Wall," WSJ).

Maryland.  Maryland has opened a bunch of casinos.  The state gets a large proportion of the revenue ("Maryland casinos are doing better than before the pandemic," WTOP-radio).  Three are in urban areas, three in outlying areas of the state.  The outlying locations generate comparatively low revenue.

The most successful is in Suburban Washington, although the facility in Anne Arundel County, Maryland Live!, run by the Cordish Entertainment Group does reasonably well.  Baltimore has a casino too, which opened a few years after Maryland Live!  

Once the casino opened in Prince George's County, revenues dropped in Baltimore and Anne Arundel, although the Arundel facility still does pretty well, while Baltimore lags significantly.

What should city priorities be in the "entertainment economy"?  When I used to work in hospitality, there would be non-sports restaurants trying to do programming around special events like the Super Bowl, or independent retail vis a vis Black Friday, which is dominated by national chains.  Mostly their efforts don't pan out, because people are attracted to the main providers, not secondary participants.

With gambling, I guess it's "everybody's doing it so we might as well do so."  (Sports betting is another element and can be incorporated into stadiums and arenas without expecting it to be a separate revitalization lever.)

But expecting it to do something remarkable for a city--when you think gambling, Las Vegas (or Reno and Lake Tahoe secondarily) is top of mind, not Baltimore, Prince George's County, Boston, Springfield, Philadelphia, etc.-- is a stretch.

This is true for horse racing ("More sports and revitalization: Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore") and gaming, unless you can make it a destination anchor as opposed to one choice out of many other entertainment choices.

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Gambling addiction and people of limited means spending their money on such are other issues.

Policing and city risk and reputational management: Ocean City, Maryland | Create beach ambassadors to deescalate visitor management

The Washington Post writes, "Ocean City boardwalk: Violent arrests of unarmed young men raise questions about policing," about a bunch of violent policing episodes in the beach section of Ocean City, Maryland.  

The city has rules about "vaping on the boardwalk" and the crowds get more unruly as the night goes on and people become more inebriated. 

The need to redefine what public safety means and how to deliver it.  It's a particularly good example of the need for rearticulating how to deal with public safety in a broader and more nuanced fashion ("The opportunity to rearticulate public safety delivery keeps being presented"). 

Police often escalate even the mundane.  It occurred to me while reading the article that there is an element of "police escalating a situation" that hasn't been adequately identified in all the recent analysis of overpolicing, warrior policing, "defund" etc.

I had a few experiences with cops in my teens and 20s that left me negatively disposed. 

My sense was that because police officers mostly deal with criminals on hard things: 

(1) they tend to believe that everyone they deal with is a criminal.  (At least that's the way I perceived my interactions.  That's how I felt I was treated.)

(2) they escalated the situation(s) almost immediately, not violently with tasers or guns, but "socio-emotionally" by immediately assuming the worst of the situation and the people they encountered, and communicating this in everything they said and did.

I'm a pretty nondescript white guy as were the people I was with.

This form of escalation hasn't been identified as an issue, but it likely contributes to escalation of the many incidents that quickly become violent.. 

Policing and risk management.  And a good example that elected officials don't look at policing as a risk management issue, and such incidents should be seen as indicators that there is a problem that should be addressed ("Where is the risk management approach to police misconduct and regularized killings of citizens?").

Tourism as an invasion, and the attack response?  Ocean City is a town of 7,000 people year around--90% white, but grows by at least 250,000 week by week throughout the summer, and 40% or more of visitors are people of color.  

The police department isn't huge, and augments its force every summer with "temporary officers."  Most are white.  And the article describes a number of troubling incidents, not limited to the temporary officers.

A town that grows 300x every week throughout the summer must feel like an invasion to many of the residents and the city more generally.  

Other cities face the same issues.  Either with Spring Break or other special events ("Police chief: End truck meet -- 300 police officers trying to control 50,000 visitors," Dayton Beach News-Journal) or more generally like Amsterdam ("'Don't come to Amsterdam.' Dutch capital tells rowdy tourists to stay away," CNN), Barcelona ("Can Barcelona Fix Its Love-Hate Relationship With Tourists After the Pandemic?," TIME Magazine), and Venice, and are trying to take special measures to reduce the impact.  

Thinking of this as an invasion may well carry over into the attitude of the police officers and how they interact with visitors.  And frankly, some of the incidents might cause them to feel that way (" Maryland Men Charged With Setting Car On Fire, Shooting Into House Of Women They Met At Seacrets, Ocean City," CBS Baltimore).

The boardwalk sits between the sand of the beach and the long strip of businesses -- hotels, retail, taverns, rental shops, etc. -- facing the ocean.  Photo: Julia Hatmaker, Harrisburg Patriot-News.

Vaping on the boardwalk the equivalent of traffic stops as opportunities for escalation?  A number of incidents have been around vaping, as smoking and vaping is forbidden on the beach and boardwalk.  

It reminds me of the really great discussion lately about traffic stops and how they are used by police as a way to initiate "stop and search" ("WHAT TRAFFIC ENFORCEMENT WITHOUT POLICE COULD LOOK LIKE," The Appeal; "Traffic without the police," Stanford Law Review, 73: 2021).  

As part of the "defund"/rearticulation of public safety discussion, traffic stops are being brought up, that they should only be made for true traffic violations, not as an excuse to create the opportunity for an arrest.

Smoking or vaping on the beach, like traffic stops, is an opportunity for escalation and for things to go awry in unexpected ways with terrible consequences.

Lifeguard station in Ocean City.  Image from the city website.

Lifeguards for the water, beach ambassadors for the sand.  I hate smoking, so have no problem with the ban.

But like how lifeguards are hired to manage people in the water ("Ocean City Beach Patrol Works Hard, Rescues 557 Swimmers This Summer," OCNJDaily, "n Ocean City, another lifeguard season begins — two minutes early," Baltimore Sun), from the perspective of rearticulating how public safety is defined and delivered, I'd create positions--beach ambassadors--to manage the sand side of the beach in a similar way, shifting from the more coercive approach of police officers.  

Beach ambassadors in Virginia Beach wear bright yellow shirts.  Photo: WAVY-TV.

It turns out Virginia Beach already does this ("Beach ambassadors: They don’t police, but they play a role in keeping Virginia Beach safe," Norfolk Virginian-Pilot) as do other communities.  From the article:

“We’re not here to police,” she said. “We’re here to basically bring calm and reassurance.” 

Beach ambassadors are stationed on every block in the resort area and are roaming at other city beaches. The city has a $1.2 million contract with IMGoing for the service, which likely will continue through Labor Day weekend, Deputy City Manager Ron Williams said. The money is coming from the Tourism Investment Program fund. 

According to their job description, beach ambassadors are to serve as a “welcoming committee” for visitors. They are to remind people of the beach guidelines, which are also posted on signs along the beach and the Boardwalk.

Ocean City calls the lifeguards the Beach Patrol.  They can include beach ambassadors within the same program.   From the Sun article:

“They’re the ambassadors down here,” he said of the lifeguards, new and old. “They've been trained on how to talk to people.”

Some communities, with smaller crowds, and fewer order issues, have volunteer beach ambassador programs.  But cities dealing with large crowds, like Ocean City or Virginia Beach, need more formal programs.

The "beach ambassadors" would manage the beach and boardwalk the way that lifeguards manage the water.  And they should not just be drawn from Ocean City and the surrounding county, which are predominately white, but also from communities like Baltimore or Harrisburg where many of the young visitors originate.

Recommendations to Ocean City.  (1) Ocean City ought to be addressing public safety from a risk management and tourism reputation standpoint and manage it accordingly. 

Although probably a lot of visitors reading articles like the one in the Post blame the people "served" by the cops, and won't change their plans to visit.

(2) Hire a crew of police officers more reflective of the demographics of summer visitors rather than the demographics of the permanent residents who are 90% white. 

(3) The police need to be trained super well in terms of the likely issues, crowd control, and especially de-escalation. 

(4) Create a crew of Beach Ambassadors to provide softer management of the beach and boardwalk, tot de-emphasize coercion and police presence, but with police as back up as needed.  

Conclusion: create a community safety partnership for the beach.  In some ways, the tourist "invasion" should be seen as a nuisance, and managed proactively and professionally ("Creating 'community safety partnership neighborhood management programs as a management and mitigation strategy for public nuisances: Part 3 (like homeless shelters)").  Business improvement districts and the way they provide extra-normal services including public safety management are one example of how to do it.

Maximizing the benefit of tv shows (or movies) for tourism: Top Chef, Kentucky

It's been a few years since I've watched Top Chef or Project Runway, reality shows about restauranting/cooking and fashion design respectively.

Typically such shows get some sort of financial support from local economic development and/or tourism sources.

-- "Movies and tourism and touristification ," 2009
-- "Cities and states need to extract more from tax incentive deals with television and movie productions: get ad credits ," 2014
-- "Historic Preservation Tuesday: Critical mass of rehabilitation and a big dose of tv exposure sparks community revitalization in Waco, Texas," 2016

But for me, often the shows don't adequately promote the local areas concomitant with the financial support they've received.

Cheftestants get a tour of the Maker's Mark distillery on episode 2 of "Top Chef" season 16. (Photo: Courtesy of Michael Hickey/Bravo)

According to an article in the Louisville Courier-Journal, "'Top Chef' may be over but food interest in Kentucky is just beginning," the State of Kentucky seems to have done a much better job of getting particular places shown in the Top Chef series. From the article:

For 12 weeks, between December and February, the Bravo show highlighted the state's tourism opportunities, taking viewers on a whirlwind journey through its central and southern regions as 15 chefs competed for the national title.

Episodes pointed viewers to iconic attractions like Churchill Downs in Louisville and Keeneland in Lexington. But they also introduced people to hidden gems like the Rathskeller room at the Seelbach Hotel and the houseboats of Lake Cumberland.

Tourism officials previously said they expected "Top Chef" to boost visits to and interest in the state once the season ended. But leading up to last week's finale, in which Alabama native Kelsey Barnard Clark was crowned the "Top Chef," local places featured throughout the season reported they'd already seen an uptick in business, with customers both new and old asking about their time on the show.

In Paducah, farm-to-table restaurant Freight House, owned by runner-up contestant Sara Bradley, has been taking reservations for out-of-town visitors from as close as Nashville and as far as Chicago.

In Lexington, chef Ouita Michel's family of restaurants have stayed busy through their dead season, with customers braving the cold to ask about her turn as a guest judge.

And in Loretto, Maker's Mark distillery has seen an increase in customers at its restaurant, Star Hill Provisions. A new common question for the distillery's tour guides: "Were you there when they filmed?"...

To accommodate "Top Chef," a Kentucky tourism board last year approved up to $3.5 million in production incentives for the show, promising to refund the production company a portion of any eligible costs it spent in the state.

At the time, the incentive marked a drastic jump from sponsorship or rebates the show had reportedly received in other filming locations.

Seems like it will be worth watching the programs to see how local attractions and places have been covered, and to use that as a model for communities negotiating with tv and movie producers in the future.

Another thing the State of Kentucky Tourism agency has done was to create a webpage focusing on the program and the places they visited. 

-- Better in the Bluegrass

That's one of the best ways to leverage the exposure, along with working with various attractions, restaurants, etc. for specific promotions.  Such as these (via the LCJ):

• Mint Julep Tours — The Louisville-based tour company will run a special "Top Chef"-inspired tour on three dates in 2019: June 13, Sept. 12 and Oct. 17. The tour takes guests on a progressive dinner to three restaurants connected to the show. It costs $119 per person, plus taxes and fees. 
• Stone Fences Tours — The Lexington-based company has a Culinary Trail of the Commonwealth tour that takes guests to seven stops connected to the show, including Keeneland in Lexington, Maker's Mark in Loretto and Decca in Louisville. The tour lasts approximately 12 hours and costs $225 per person.

Atlantic City (NJ) Press series on "Reinventing Atlantic City"

In the past, I've written about newspapers doing ongoing series on community revitalization issues, from the "Rethinking Philadelphia" series in the Philadelphia Daily News to special pull-out sections in the Camden (NJ) Courier-Post.  More recently, the Chicago Tribune had a series around planning, calling out the city's planning history and Daniel Burnham.

The Press of Atlantic City is running a similar series called "Reinventing Atlantic City."  This article from the series, "Art is a tool in the fight against blight: How can A.C. see more of it?," includes links to past articles in the left sidebar.

Unfortunately, the running head/link for the series doesn't return a list of articles.

With the decline in the financial viability of newspapers, it's much harder for newspapers to commit to this kind of coverage, so it should always be lauded when it occurs.

Although interestingly, this article in today's paper, "How weather favors Las Vegas vs. Atlantic City," isn't part of the series.

Nor these previous articles, "Atlantic City casinos needs to adopt 'Las Vegas model' to survive" and "Can A Non-Gaming Model Work For Atlantic City Casinos As It Does In Las Vegas."

World Tourism Day, Thursday September 27th: Airbnb/Short term rentals, "overtourism" and impact on housing supply

-- World Tourism Day website

Given that this year's theme for WTD is "Tourism and the Digital Transformation," it makes sense to address the impact of digital/e-commerce enabling technologies on fractional rentals, to wit, home stay digital platforms like Home Away, Airbnb, and VRBO, which enable people to stay in non-traditional properties--homes and apartments--while traveling.

The thing is that in general I think "sharing services" like Airbnb are fine. Especially because they allow people to stay in real neighborhoods, and experience stays more like how a resident would, rather than a more homogeneous experience within a hotel.

But I wonder if I am not totally objective as a user of such services myself.  E.g., the place I stayed in in Hackney Wick, across from a London Overground station, was awesome.  Same with a basement apartment in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle.  Etc.

Who rents properties, individuals?  Airbnb, the market leader, was originally created by some apartment dwellers who wanted to rent out space in their apartment to help pay the rent.

Or firms?  But over time, it and similar services have become marketing platforms that in terms of properties with the most frequent use are dominated by professional firms rather than individuals, and are "whole unit" use rather than fractional.

-- The State of Airbnb Hosting: An in-depth analysis of Airbnb and the home sharing industry, LearnAirbnb.com

Hotel opposition over profits, employment.  Plus, hotel workers unions and hotel firms are vociferous opponents, figuring it cuts down on hotel stays and thereby profits and employment ("Airbnb fight is about hotel profits, not workers," Albany Times Union).

My sense is that this impact is minimal, because the type of people using this form of travel are not likely to be a major proportion of the people who normally rent hotel rooms.  The same goes for patrons of bed and breakfast establishments, etc.

Is non-traditional home stay a driver of Overtourism?  Answer: generally no. NotionsCapital shares an article with us from the Guardian, "Airbnb and the so-called sharing economy is hollowing out our cities."

Relatedly, there was a piece in the New York Times about "Overtourism" attributing this in part to airbnb.  Earlier they ran a story about how Palma on Spain's island of Majorca has banned airbnb ("To Contain Tourism, One Spanish City Strikes a Ban, on Airbnb)

 Still, I don't think these services are is what is making places like Venice or Barcelona "overtouristed." It's not like the thousands of people who go into those cities from cruise ships are then using Airbnb.

But sometimes the answer is yes because small reductions in housing supply make a big difference in strong markets.  But I think what we've learned from the housing market is that even small and "marginal" changes in supply and demand make a big difference in price and availability, particularly in high demand real estate markets.

These graphics showing the NYC neighborhoods with the highest number of Airbnb rentals and the percentage of the local housing supply dedicated to short term rentals were produced by a student at Pratt Institute.





I can't remember the exact price of my stay in Hackney Wick/London, but it was less than £20 per night and literally, right across the street from the train station.

Combining the impact of housing sharing systems like Airbnb removing housing from the local rental market simultaneous with increases in demand to live in the city can result in significant price appreciation for rental properties.

Therefore, it's reasonable to regulate such short term housing travel arrangements, in high demand markets like  Barcelona ("How Barcelona Is Limiting Airbnb Rentals," CityLab), New York City or San Francisco ("Airbnb's Impact on San Francisco," five-part series, San Francisco Chronicle), etc.

Although according to this graphic produced as part of the study by the NYC Budget Office, the rent appreciation attributed to the impact of the short term rental market was relatively small in most neighborhoods.

Source: Statista.

However, many studies do not find a significant impact in various communities such as Denver ("Does Airbnb hurt Denver's rental market? Not much numbers suggest," Colorado Public Radio) or in Australia ("What impact does Airbnb have on Sydney and Melbourne housing markets," SGS Economics and Planning).

Recommendations

1.  Accommodating Airbnb and similar services should be considered both within a comprehensive accommodations element within an overall community's tourism development program and planning initiative and as part of a community housing master plan.

2. In hyper strong residential real estate markets like NYC and SF, depending on the neighborhood, short term rentals may need strict limits and regulation, because shifting even 5% of properties away from residential use will make a big difference in terms of rents, etc.

While I tend to hate the imposition of what I think of as often arbitrary limits through zoning and building regulation process, I would put a ceiling on the number of "whole unit" rentals that can made through sharing services. In DC that would be in places like Capitol Hill, Georgetown, Dupont Circle etc.

I could see a maximum number of 5% of total housing units being able to be let via fractional home stay services.  I would probably start with a low number like 2%, and evaluate it yearly.

3.  Still, weak market neighborhoods in otherwise strong market cities should be treated differently.  E.g. in DC there has been a lot of discussion of airbnb as a force of gentrification in lower income communities like Anacostia, when the reality is that most of the activity is west of the river.  And, increasing visitation and business for local businesses can be seen as an economic plus ("Airbnb: Stays east of the Anacostia River grew 65 percent since mid-2017," CurbedDC).

In any case, all neighborhoods should be regularly monitored as part of housing planning and limits set as needed.

4. It should be illegal to convert apartment buildings to ersatz hotels as some property owners have attempted ("D.C. sues company for allegedly treating rent-control apartments like ‘hotel rooms’," Washington Post.

5. But years ago, I thought apartment management firms should use the idea of a "bed and breakfast" service of a unit or two as a way to let people try a building out.  Why not?

Separately, generally fractional rental of an apartment is a lease violation, but some companies are considering the ramifications of allowing it ("Using Airbnb to your advantage," MultiHousing News).

6. Regardless, all such uses should require licensing and payment of local hotel taxes for each stay.

7. However, I wouldn't put a limit on people doing fractional use rentals--making a room available in their house or apartment when they still occupy it. They should still have to collect the equivalent of hotel taxes.