Maybe Parliament should take the quiz

The Suburban Xanadu quiz, that is. And I mean the United Kingdom's Parliament, not George Clinton's group.

File this one under "totally unexpected." While innocently googling my book (again), I found that it somehow made it into a debate in a joint House of Lords/House of Commons gambling draft board committee . Trust me, I'm just as shocked as you. Here's the uncorrected transcript of a discussion from July 8, 2004:

Professor Sir Peter Hall: But the key to this, I think, has to be is a regional casino a destination casino. Let us put it very bluntly by way of example, and I do have to again declare my interest as Shadow Chair long-term of an urban regeneration company that does not exist, the Blackpool Urban Regeneration Company. If you look at the Blackpool proposals, which are well?known to the Committee, if you look at, for instance, the proposal for Sports City in East Manchester, are those both regional casinos? Clearly, by any criteria, the Blackpool proposal will have been. You would have to travel from most of populous Lancashire and Yorkshire a considerable distance, and therefore you would have to make those critical decisions that Professor Collins alluded to before you set out to travel. It would not be something you could casually do. In relation to Manchester it is a little more complicated, because that development is not interesting, a city centre development by definition, by any definition that ODPM have used. It is a slightly off?centre location that might be allowed to be, I do not know, a sort of near to city centre location, but obviously the decision as to reaching that location on a Saturday night would be rather more casual than it would be about getting on a motorway and travelling the M61 and the M55 to Blackpool; and that is the critical distinction, I think, that needs to be embodied somewhere.

Q373 Lord Wade of Chorlton: May I just follow up with that, because when we took evidence yesterday from the American casino operators, they clearly have their vision of what their large casinos or their regional casinos are going to be, they are going to be very large leisure complexes costing in the region of $150 to $200 million were the sort of phrases they used, and are going to attract not necessarily high players but, if you like, people who are looking for leisure week?ends and going with their families and a family?based operation. It seems to me, if that is their concept, it is not something that is actually defined in what the Government's proposals are. Would you like to comment on how you could add to those definitions, if you like, that made it very clear that these were very large entertainment complexes of which casinos were a part rather than the centre?

Professor Sir Peter Hall: Thank you. I would. In fact, as an academic, as a professor, I am bound to refer to the literature, and I have in my evidence referred to this rather recent book, Suburban Xanadu, which is an academic study of the American casino industry and its evolution; and that makes it clear, and I have the exert which I will put into the secretariat at the end of this examination??

Q374 Chairman: Thank you; that would be helpful.

Professor Sir Peter Hall: It is ready. The recent evolution in Las Vegas, in particular, is exactly as the American operators say. They are now looking to synergy ? it is a rather over?worked word, I know ? between several casino complexes with a view to people who do go there for a weekend or a long week end, and they are looking not exclusively to gamble at all but for a leisure week?end. They are looking surely to do some gambling, and it would need to be an extended experience, hence the critically important point of a range of prizes which gives the possibility of extending the gambling over a period; but they are also looking to other experiences, especially live entertainment, shows, eating out, bars, and so on, which those complexes do so well. But the new trend is that, instead of each complex being a self?contained complex competing with the next one, which to some extent it still does, they are seeing synergies from being clustered together along the Strip; and that is, I think, the crucial criterion more than one casino in a cluster ? that is another fashionable word in the academic literature about city development and regeneration ? a cluster of casinos, which would be more than the sum of the parts, and I think that concept needs to be embodied somewhere but has not yet been embodied in guidance.

Chairman: We have been asking questions about aggregation and getting precious few answers. I am sure Lord Faulkner would want me to say that your point about a leisure mix, and I think you did refer to theatres, was something that effectively influenced our previous recommendation about there being a requirement for these large casinos to make such investment. That is very helpful.

Q375 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: I wonder if Sir Peter could stick with the problem, if one can call it this, of the competing claims of Blackpool and Manchester, because very early on in our earlier inquiry we received some very powerful evidence from people who were interested in Blackpool who made it very clear that the viability of a Blackpool development was conditional on there not being a regional competitor which would in their eyes take away the investment. You have sat through the session this morning and listened to the minister. There is clearly no intention on the part of the Government to have any form of direction or even statement of preference, as far as I can see, between, say, a run down seaside resort or an urban centre like Manchester. So how would you envisage that it would be possible to resolve this problem of competing claims within a region and, indeed, between one region and its neighbour?

UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 843-iv

I don't personally know Professor Sir Peter Hall (though his work is extremely impressive--check it out here), but I think that he has one of the coolest titles ever, after "Supreme Allied Commander (Eisenhower's job in World War II)." I have no idea what the "Shadow Chair long-term of an urban regeneration company that does not exist" does, but it sounds really impressive and spooky.

Apparently, Professor Sir Hall used Suburban Xanadu to tout the benefits of integrated, destination-style resorts for Blackpool. Given that city's reputation as the Atlantic City of England, that might be a good idea, but they'd certainly be served by taking a bit more care to craft the regulations to encourage more integration with the surrounding community.

For me, the big news is that my book was cited in an ongoing policy debate in Great Britain, and it is a double honor that a scholar of Sir Hall's rank even read it. Hopefully, when I specifically discuss British gaming history in ROLL THE BONES, they'll make use of that, too, in the British gaming debate.

posted by Dave at 3:57 PM

Maybe Parliament should take the quiz

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