Reversing Urban Decline: The Role for Sports, Culture, and Entertainment and What Is Required to Turn Subsidies into Strategic Investments

At a symposium organized by Roger Noll and Andrew Zimbalist at the Brookings Institution in 1996, urban economist Professor Edwin Mills advised other scholars in attendance that it might be more important to study the ways in which sports (and venues) shift economic patterns in a region instead of occupying any more time trying to understand if teams and events affect regional economies. His advice was accurate. His observation or direction changed the focus of my research.