PolicyGuy

Friday, February 20, 2004


Beware of Convention Center Miracle Cures
All over the country, cities are chasing after fortune and a hot reputation by luring convention business. In 1989, for example, Detroit's Cobo Hall got a $200 million renovation.

Today--15 years later-- the facility still carries $140 million in debt, but according to one report, it is among the country's worst fiscal performers. Now the mayor wants to spend $1.3 billion the city doesn't have for a totally new facility.

"Justice Louis D. Brandeis'?s metaphor of the states as "laboratories" for policy experiments ... had almost nothing to do with federalism and everything to do with his commitment to scientific socialism. .... To this day, it continues to inhibit a truly experimental, federalist politics." -- Michael S. Greve

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