Casinos like the Taj Mahal have destroyed Atlantic City’s public space. Gambling’s arrival replaced the outward-looking hotels, shops, and promenades of the mid-century boardwalk with clusters of dark, labyrinthine resorts, set back from the street and enclosed behind monitored security gates. [...]
Atlantic City’s model of a plush, self-contained casino abutting a ruined neighborhood has become a synecdoche for the last forty years of American urban development.
— jacobinmag.com
To dissect the urban effects of Trump's Atlantic City casino, Sam Wetherall traces the city's history as a booming resort town through the early 20th century, and into its current economic crisis:
In 2014 alone, casino closures cost Atlantic City more than ten thousand jobs, a staggering figure for a city with a population under forty thousand. Atlantic City’s unemployment rate sits at almost 14 percent, and it suffers from the highest home foreclosure rates in the country.
Donald Trump may herald a radical new force in American politics, but his background illuminates trends that have been unfolding in American cities for more than fifty years. As deindustrialization hollowed out cities’ economies, many have responded by wrapping their public spaces in glittering property developments and legalizing gambling to survive.
Atlantic City provides a potent, and foreboding, example of the kind of urbanity that Trump's business agenda has wrought:
While the media has dissected the failures of Trump’s casinos, the technicalities of their bankruptcies, and the shadowy financial means that propped them up, dwelling on their brief success reveals something more important, and indeed more terrifying, about what might happen if he wins in November.
More on the presidential nominee:
13 Comments
Yes, he's horrible.
Can the contributors to Archinect now find some other material to masturbate themselves to?
no, no .. we want 'More' on this presidential nominee.
i hear Melania may have violated visa laws with those sexxy pix! Where's that breaking 'nect news? give it to us plz k thks!
no bring it. fareed wrote about his BS factor....fareed of cnn and back in the day newsweek etc...intellectual with a pulse on the pulse uses BS in a subject line....feel it...... disenfranchised white working family America you just got robbed of your dignity. you gave him a purple heart. he runs low end 800 number dial in votes.....more more more - blasphemy. whitey screwing whitey.
i am a Bundy fan.
I'm definitely reaching a point where I would vote some other candidate. If I were a devout Republican, I would write use the actual write in option this time and actually vote for one of the other candidates.
In fact, if I were a devout REPUBLICAN and will vote only a republic, I would suggest Ted Cruz or John Kasich. In which case, don't cast your republican vote to Donald. Exercise the write in for Ted Cruz or John Kasich. If I was to vote a republican in and want it to have plausibility of a Republican that isn't Donald Trump... VOTE Ted Cruz.
Ideally, I would personally vote John Kasich over Ted Cruz but I don't feel he would garner enough awareness. Ted Cruz might have a plausible chance against Hillary if the Republican party puts their vote behind Ted Cruz and would serve Donald right.
nader suggested a No option. i like it.
At the bookstore today while checking out, my 8 year old daughter looks at the cover of The Economist (i think). A picture of a canyon, showing on the left welcoming people and rainbows and on the right walls. My 8 year old daughter tells her 5 year old sister 'Evil' is on the right. She follows that up with "Donald Trump wants to build a wall!". My 5 year old responds "I hate Donald Trump." I want to point out, neither my wife nor I ever discuss politics with our children or watch news with them.
You mean Ralph Nader the biggest loser of all time?
Chris, we had a similar experience - was watching one of Donald Dump's rants on youtube, on my phone, and my 4 year old comes and says "Shut up Trump!". Dunno where they learn...
I would argue that Bill Clinton's NAFTA had far more to do with post-industrial blight...
Trump Taj isn't even owned by Trump, just like many of his other brands. It's a relic of his 80s heyday, when he was getting huge loans from the big banks to build much needed infrastructure, er I mean, Atlantic City Casinos. That Trump has been reborn via social media is fitting considering that it seems to be the modern version of casinos: a giant part of the "tech economy" propped up by big banks that produces nothing tangible or useful.
That said, it would be an interesting project to try to come up with a new strategy for Atlantic City.... there's some interesting buildings there (other than the Taj, godawful, dark and depressing like all Trump buildings)
GOLD IS BEST !!
taj mahal is gr8t
AIM HIGH!
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