ABSTRACT
“If you build it, they will come,” this invitation, made famous in the 1989 baseball fantasy movie Field of Dreams, has special resonance for the theme park city of tomorrow. Battered by factory closures, shrinking federal subsidies and a deteriorating infrastructure, cities and towns across America are desperate for something – anything – to kickstart their stagnant economies. For local politicians and planners whose communities are faced with such dismal prospects, the first step to recovery is to join forces with a corporate savior in order to build a landmark project which, it is perceived, will constitute an economic miracle.
