ABSTRACT
The process of building private stadiums with public dollars in the United States is more akin to plutocracy and oligarchy than to democracy. This chapter includes both a procedural definition of democracy and a substantive definition. It speculates that the growth coalitions in larger, more exciting cities have less success in emphasizing new sports stadiums as an executive recruitment tool. Both the structure of growth coalitions and the decisions they make are embedded in the unique social characteristics of each city. The corporate arm of the local growth coalition has reasons to be interested in new publicly funded sports stadiums and has the power to help turn interest into reality. In Cleveland, the powerful local growth coalition and its political champions have been subsidizing new stadiums rather than decent housing, further exacerbating the metamorphosis of the city into a playground for suburbanites. If more cities had competing mainstream media voices, their stadium initiatives might have taken much different paths.
