According to historian Aaron Cowan, in his new book A Nice Place to Visit: Tourism and Urban Revitalization in the Postwar Rustbelt, cities in the Rustbelt have turned to service and entertainment businesses as income sources to replace industries that began vanishing in the 1970s. They built convention centers, stadiums and new shopping areas—plus casinos.
Especially since the 1990s, casinos have increasingly been built in former industrial hubs in the Rustbelt, including St. Louis, Detroit and Cleveland. A prime example is Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, one hour west of New York. Formerly the headquarters of Bethlehem Steel Corporation, the second-largest steelmaker in the world, the 1,800-acre complex stood empty after the corporation filed for bankruptcy in 2001. But after Pennsylvania legalized casino gambling in 2004, the Las Vegas Sands Corporation scooped up the property and opened the industrial-themed Sands Casino in 2009. Revenue from the casino built an arts center on the property, plus a linear park that runs along the site’s iconic blast furnaces.
But Las Vegas Sands also has put on hold its plans to add more retail space, a convention center and another hotel tower on the rest of the former industrial site. The company also has put off preserving and reusing several aging factory buildings which are crumbling beyond repair.
In Everett, Massachusetts just outside Boston, a former Monsanto plant that has sat vacant for more than 30 years will become a Wynn Resorts casino, opening in 2019. Robert DeSalvio, the former Sands Casino Bethlehem, has been hired to oversee the development. Wynn Resorts will spend $30 million to clean up the arsenic, lead and other chemicals that have seeped into the site’s soil and water. Wynn Resorts also has promised to open the Mystic River waterfront that has been closed to the public for decades.
New York State legalized casinos in 2013, in particular to revitalize upstate communities where industrial giants General Electric, IBM and the Endicott-Johnson shoe company once provided thousands of jobs. In New Jersey, a November referendum will determine if casinos should be allowed at the Meadowlands racetrack. Also in Pennsylvania, legislators are considering whether to allow up to 28 satellite casinos for existing racetracks, slots in airports and online gambling.
Still, some analysts say casino gambling is nearing a saturation point, especially in the mid-Atlantic and New England, where it’s allowed in 10 of 13 states.
