Ok, this is getting embarrassing. In today’s Edmonton Journal, David Staples, for what seems like the millionth time, has written about the supposed virtues of the arena district in Columbus, Ohio. In doing so, Staples once again references an academic paper by Professor Brad Humphreys, of the University of Alberta, as evidence that an arena district can be a financial boon to a city. This is what Staples wrote:
After studying the Columbus model, two economists, the University of Alberta’s Brad Humphreys and fellow researcher Xia Feng, found that pro sports facilities can bring important economic benefits: “A new state-of-the art facility integrated in a comprehensive urban redevelopment program and located in the heart of a large city might be expected to generate increases in residential property values near hundreds of millions of dollars within a mile of that facility, if the location, planning, construction, and development is carried out carefully.”
What’s so frustrating is that I wrote two posts about Columbus in August, and one of those posts dealt quite specifically with the Humphreys’ paper on Columbus, and the important items Staples was leaving out in discussing that paper. For example, Staples glossed over the fact that:
1) The paper was a working paper. It had not been subject to the peer review process, an essential step in the validation of any academic work. Professor Humphreys’ methodology and conclusions have not been screened and looked over by the people who understand these issues best: his colleagues. 
2) The paper did conclude that residential property values were higher in proximity to Nationwide Arena, but it also included a great big, giant caveat that they could not determine how much of that was due to the arena and how much was due to the fact that the arena was downtown.
3) The paper did not take into account the 75-100% property tax abatement provided by the City of Columbus to encourage people to live downtown (Nationwide Arena received a 99% tax abatement).
4) A similar study Humphreys cites in his paper found no effect on property values from the new football stadium in Dallas.
5) A simple calculation shows that even if the increase in property values was a result of the new arena, it was not enough to offset the cost of the facilities.
Most importantly, I showed that even if you take all those other caveats away, you simply can’t “make an argument that the City should invest tax dollars into an arena because it will get more money back from an increase in property taxes. It won’t, because an increase in property values in one part of the city leads to a decrease in property values in another party of the city, and because the City of Edmonton doesn’t collect property taxes in the same way as Columbus.”
All of these items have been cut and pasted from my previous posts. The posts have been sitting here for the world to see for over two months. David Staples reads this website. Yet at no time have I seen him address the points I brought up in my two Columbus posts, points which I have now been forced to make again. They certainly weren’t considered in his article today. Instead, Staples is doing what he’s done on the arena issue since he started covering it: sticking by a case that is at best an outlier, choosing personal experience over sound academic research, and ignoring anything that might get in the way of the narrative he has constructed in his head and in his columns. He’s never applied any real level of scrutiny to the claims made by those in favour of a downtown arena. He’s never looked at cities like Cleveland, Baltimore, Detroit, Washington or even New York City, where massive public subsidies for sporting facilities have done little to nothing in terms of “revitalizing” the areas around them (he chose to visit two cities recommended as case studies by the Katz Group and the loaded Arena Feasibility Committee). Recently, he also decided to speak to a single source—the decidedly pro-arena Mayor Stephen Mandel—before declaring in a story that the arena project was gaining momentum. All this, from the Journal’s new urban affairs columnist.
In 2008, sociologist Rick Eckstein released an article noting that mainstream media are “noticeably biased toward supporting publicly financed stadiums, which has a significant impact on the initiatives’ success.” He stated that:
“This bias usually takes the form of uncritically parroting stadium proponents’ economic and social promises, quoting stadium supporters far more frequently than stadium opponents, overlooking the numerous objective academic studies on the topic, and failing to independently examine the multitude of failed stadium-centered promises throughout the country…”
I can’t help but read that quote and think of David Staples. I also can’t help but read that quote and think of the coverage the downtown arena issue has received in the mainstream media, in particular at the Edmonton Journal. Has the coverage become more critical over time? Yes. Writers like Paula Simons and Scott McKeen definitely changed their course over the years and started asking for more from City Hall and the Katz Group. The problem is that, from the very beginning, media like the Journal framed this issue in a way that was extremely beneficial to the pro-arena side. And we’ve never gotten away from that. It’s never been framed in terms of a government bailout or corporate handout. Instead, it’s always been framed by the media as finding a solution to the “problem” of downtown. But that gives credence to what is ultimately a false dichotomy. It’s not arena district or nothing. It’s not arena district or horrible city. And it shouldn’t be that the Oilers get a new hockey arena because Edmonton needs to revitalize its downtown core. That’s illogical, and framing it that way has been a disservice to Edmontonians.
I’ve come to realize that David Staples is never going to stop writing pro-downtown arena articles. Nor will John MacKinnon. David’s heart and eyes have told him that what has “worked” in Columbus will work here. John wishes Edmonton was Montreal and wants a stadium close to where he lives (Todd Babiak’s call for a benevolent dictator to build a new arena still has me baffled). That’s fine. But it would be nice if the Journal found some other voices to chime in on this matter. Maybe tasking some writers to dig a little bit deeper, to provide a little more objectivity. To frame the issue in a new way. At the very least, I’d like it if they found a voice that did something other than bang the same, erroneous drum about Columbus over and over again. I don’t think that’s too much to ask, when it comes to matters of this importance.
***Update*** The blog post title for Staples’ story is even more bold in its declaration: “A downtown arena can be a jewel for Edmonton, but only if best practices are followed.” Yes, a jewel. Gag.
Why Downtown? 