Professional stadiums and the city : an assessment of twenty-first century urban sports facilities in the United States

This report explores significant developments and trends in the recent history of professional sports stadiums in the US. In particular, it explores the use of stadium construction as an urban development and investment strategy in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The report begins with an introductory literature review that traces the history of and debates surrounding the financing and construction of professional sports stadiums in urban spaces. Special attention is paid to public-private partnership models and the various approaches employed to subsidize or otherwise finance these stadiums. The various approaches to measuring economic and non-economic impacts and benefits of such stadiums are introduced, as are arguments for and against stadiums as an urban development strategy. Building on the extant literature, the report offers three case studies of twenty-first century stadiums built using a variety of public-private funding models. The cases of Minneapolis, Arlington (Texas), and Orlando analyzed as exemplars of recent trends and issues with the stadium-centered approach to urban development. A fourth case study considers an upcoming project in Detroit which aims to resurrect the once-booming metropolis. The conclusion of the report ties together the lessons of these cases studies and offers directions for future research in related topics.