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| "T3": 200 block of Johnson Av NW (Google Earth screenshot) |
Work continues apace on Cedar Rapids' casino, due to open at the end of this month. In time, when it is a fabulous success and we are all rolling in prosperity, you can tell me how dumb I was back in 2025 for my negative outlook.
There are three reasons to oppose casinos. The first two relate to the morality of gambling and the class distribution of gambling losses (which fall much more on the poor). There are also doubts, given the rise of Internet gambling, whether brick and mortar gambling still has a future. I'll take all those as read, but my specific complaint about this casino has to do with its use of land. We are taking several blocks close to the center of the city, which should be used for more intense development, and using it for what is ultra-suburban development.
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| Casino, under construction, F Avenue view |
Andres Duany, one of the earliest new urbanists, described traditional development patterns as a transect that gradually tapered from the most intensive development at the urban core ("T6") to agricultural ("T2") and natural ("T1") areas at the edge of town. (See the discussion at Steuteville 2017, as well as Andres Duany, Jeff Speck and Mike Lydon. The Smart Growth Manual [McGraw Hill, 2010], 1.4)
This ordering is "useful" (Steuteville's word), because it preserves space in urbanist design for nature and agriculture, enables people not to be completely dependent on cars, provides a unified concept of development, and allows that development to proceed in harmony with surrounding areas.
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| Future casino parking. I-380 in background |
Development according to the transect is more inclusive by centering economic opportunity on the urban core. Kevin Klinkenberg (2015) wrote about why urbanism matters most in urban cores: If we truly care about the less fortunate in society, we would want them in places of maximum opportunity for access to jobs at low cost--not scattered about in suburbia. Less need to drive, and more green space at the edge of town, is also better for the natural environment on which we all depend. And making intense use of the most valuable land is better for city finances.
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| Casino construction, from 1st Street NW |
Cedar Rapids, like most towns, was built according to the transect long before Duany coined the term. Downtown looks like "T6" and the core neighborhoods look like "T3." The problem is that, in the decades since the town was built, the area around town that was once "T4" and "T5" was gutted and remains a doughnut of emptiness. Instead of small but intense development that could provide customers and clients for downtown businesses as well as property tax revenue for the city, we have what we have, making for a car-dependent city and lots of complaints about parking.
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| Future casino parking |
City officials are enthused about the advent of the casino, because they know the political value of a flashy project that gets a lot of attention and promises fun for all. But I wish the casino campus, parking lots and all, would look more like the stretch of Johnson Avenue pictured above, which I called in 2022 one of my favorite streets in the city. The nine blocks of this project could be a neighborhood with workers and shoppers for downtown as well as neighborhood businesses, and students for nearby schools if we ever decide to build schools near the center of town again (another sore subject, for another day). The tax value of an individual property would be small, but collectively they would likely provide more city revenue than the casino will.
If we must have a casino, put it out on Route 100.
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| One last look, from the trail along the Cedar River |
