New Stadium? Teams Now Want the Whole Neighborhood

Traditionally, when sports teams tried to convince cities to pay hundreds of millions to build new stadiums, they tended to make lofty promises about benefits to the local economy, that new businesses and residences would rise to serve the throngs of fans. Time and again we've seen these promises fall short -- " 'downtown catalysts' that failed to catalyze," as Neil DeMause put it in the Nation.

Now teams are taking matters into their own hands -- and, of course, they will reap the benefits.