City-Funded Convention Centers are Boondoggles

Steven Malanga, writing in City Journal, makes a case the city-funded convention centers and their subsequent expansions in the end are a waste of money. The expansion of thesecenters is usually justified by a government-funded study purporting to show that the center will stimulat the local economy. But,

city-commissioned studies almost always wind up recommending convention centers meaning that the industry of consultants who churn out such studies has a pretty lousy track record, considering the long list of underperforming centers around the country....But politicians ignore such inconvenient facts. For them, building big projects is often far more engrossing than building a strong economy, because giant construction projects directed by government agencies offer opportunities to reward friends and potential supporters with plum contracts.

Robert Blumen

Robert Blumen is an independent software developer based in San Francisco, California