My friend, Don, did this awesome art for a lengthy and biting City Paper article about Chester’s soccer stadium. He here at LG have been early adopters of criticism concerning it on every level and we’re glad to see others are starting to see it for what it is.

The state legislature, though, resisted Rendell’s overtures, with some members arguing that building a soccer stadium with tax money was a bad investment. State Rep. Thaddeus Kirkland, who represents Chester, pointed out that Chester could use a grocery store more than it could a soccer stadium.

Around this time, the proposal changed. By September, The Team had begun to talk about the stadium as the mere "anchor" of a much larger project that would include retail, office and residential components — worth $300 million of investment in Chester. By January 2008, the project had grown more ambitious still: The investment figure had magically risen to $414 million, and The Team began dangling the ultimate prize: a supermarket.

The use of public money to build stadiums has become commonplace, despite evidence that taxpayers often don’t favor it, and despite a growing body of research by economists that says the stadiums are almost always — if not always — a bum deal.

At its core, we’re seeing Cargo Cult economics. Our Benevolent Overlords think that if they can make a Potemkin Village on a macro level with shiny buildings and enough bread and circuses, it will take root and magically become a viable community. Happy, obedient citizens will walk the streets (or take light rail) all hours of the day or night, stores will be full of shoppers swiping their plastic and dogs will cease to poop.

To you and I, this propped-up, subsidized economy is the definition of failure. However, to the ruling class, once the cardboard checks have been awarded and the booty divided amongst the unions, it is now time to don the flight suits and declare victory. Maybe they’re inhaling too much Viscose. Time to take the bars off the windows (if you are from around here, that last analogy would be really funny!).