No, in short. To be clear, I don’t have any personal NIMBY stake in this, as the new site in Alexandria is about as far away from my home as the old site downtown. The bad news is that there are fewer complementary visits attached to the new site. Under the current regime, the Museum of American Art — which is pretty good — is a mere block away. The National Gallery is walking distance. How about all those meeting opportunities in DC? So you can combine a game visit with many other good activities. I’ll even accept a higher risk of crime for this benefit. What comparable opportunities might we expect from Potomac Landing in Alexandria, VA? A bunch of overpriced corporate-branded taverns nearby? Whom do you think you can meet for that early dinner, before going to the game?
It is also easy to leave the current site and make a clean getaway. You could walk for five or six blocks and catch an Uber without hindrance. Or you could park your car in a garage ten blocks away and drive home without hassles, or needing to deal with post-game traffic. (And is the Metro still running?) A concert or sports venue can be evaluated by a simple rule: if your only options for leaving are the ones they have planned for you, it will be a bad experience.
Ugh. And I haven’t even gone into the well-known bipartisan reality that sports stadium subsidies are inefficient, inegalitarian, and full of rent-seeking opportunities. These have been described as possibly the largest stadium subsidies ever.
At a deeper level, I think it is also better for NoVa if the DC downtown does not collapse altogether. But again you don’t have to get into those points. Even if you could move the stadium at zero cost, the new venue would not create a nominally better experience.
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