kotkin/sep6/mark1st/dt2nd

As the deadline imposed by the National Football League on Los Angeles comes closer, it may be time to simply let the deal die not with a whimper, but a bang. Angelenos and Californians in general should be proud that they have fended off the extortionate demands of the arrogant football owners on our city and state’s public purse.

From the onset, the attempt to ransack the tax base for the greater glory of eight days of bone crunching a year represented the epitome of bad policy. To expend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on a sports team with no real prospect of long-term economic return for the city or the state is almost criminal, given the far greater need for everything from new schools to more police or, heaven forbid, tax relief for local residents and businesses.

This is to take away nothing from the motivations of Councilman Mark Ridley Thomas, who was simply playing the smart politico’s game of getting other people’s money into your district, or of legitimate civic boosters like Eli Broad. Yet sometimes it’s important to target one’s critical energies on things that could help boost the city’s economy or image more effectively, such as Disney Hall, the Democratic Convention or even the Staples Arena.

The problems with football are manifest. The game is played only a few times a year not enough to generate much of an economic impact. This contrasts with something like Staples, which will be in constant use during the hockey and basketball season and can be configured for events critical to Los Angeles, such as national conventions or the Grammys.

Critically, Staples and Disney Hall also represent something of a strategic investment in the reinvention of downtown Los Angeles, which has largely failed as a corporate center and desperately needs to be reborn as an entertainment destination.

Yet even conceding the need for some sports facilities, it is critical also to recognize the economic impacts of even the best-intentioned projects. It’s not like there’s no historical record out there; many other cities have tried to pin their “renaissance” on luring sports teams to their central cores. To date, the impacts have been mixed at best.

Attempts to revive cities around such things as casinos, football stadiums and arenas simply have been unable to restore a downtown to the glories of its past. No city has tried this more fervently than St. Louis, recipient of L.A.’s own Rams, which has put everything it can into sports facilities downtown, including baseball, football and hockey. So far, it hasn’t made much difference; the job base has fallen 10 percent over the past decade as surrounding areas enjoyed 20 percent employment growth.

Today, downtown St. Louis may be a sports “mecca,” but in economic terms it’s more of a new Carthage, a ruin to be visited on occasional Sundays by suburban-based executives. “They don’t need the city,” suggests economic development official Ronnie Bryant over breakfast in a worn downtown hotel adjacent the new football stadium. “If they took the St. Louis Cardinals and the TWA Center out of downtown, they’d never go there.”

Even looking at the most wildly hyped examples of sports-induced civic revival, Baltimore and Cleveland, should diminish enthusiasm. These cities have done it right, in terms of building beautiful stadiums and identifying the sports franchises with their cities. Yet despite the glow surrounding them, the teams have done precious little to reverse the long-term decline of both cities. In fact these downtowns have continued to depopulate and decline relative to their regions.

As recently as 1988, downtown Baltimore accounted for one-fourth of its region’s office leasing activity; a decade later it was less than 10 percent. Two out of every five jobs in the downtown continue to come from the public sector, while the vast majority of new investment continues to flow into the suburbs.

Similarly, Cleveland has restored some long-lost luster to its downtown with an array of symbolic centers including the heavily subsidized Gateway project, which includes Jacobs field and Gund arena (home of the NBA’s Cavaliers), the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and several other retail-oriented developments but this has done little to restore its role as a regional, much less national, center.

Sports mania has done even less for Cleveland’s poor. The city’s overall share of employment and income has continued to decline, while its portion of poverty households has increased. The statistics for children are particularly disturbing; out of the nation’s 50 largest cities, Cleveland ranks 49th in percentage of children living in distressed neighborhoods, 48th in teen unemployment, 47th in infant mortality, 46th in child poverty, and 45th in low-birth-weight babies.

So what’s the point? Boosters usually end up pointing to “psychic rewards.” Suburbanites, who took most of the new jobs created by the downtown “recovery,” now feel better about working in the core, even if the bulk of the job creation continues to move to the periphery. “We didn’t create a booming economy,” explains Richard Shatten, a leader in the comeback effort who now teaches public policy at Case Western Reserve University. “We found a reason to exist.”

Yet finding a “reason to exist” is not L.A.’s problem. The city is already imbedded on the psychic map of the world. We don’t need to look for things to do on snowy winter weekends; there’s a plethora of activities both inside and out. And unlike places like Cleveland, football isn’t even important to most Angelenos. In the park near my home in Sherman Oaks, I see kids playing frisbee, soccer, baseball and basketball every day. I think I’ve seen a football tossed around once.

The bottom line: We don’t need football, particularly at a high price. Just forget about it, and while you’re at it, hand me a Pacifico and that frisbee.

Joel Kotkin is a senior fellow with the Pepperdine Institute for Public Policy and a research fellow at the Reason Public Policy Institute.