Bulls Markets : Chicago's Basketball Business and the New Inequality / Sean Dinces.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dinces, Sean, author.

Series:

Historical studies of urban America.

Historical Studies of Urban America

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Chicago Bulls (Basketball team).

United Center (Chicago, Ill.).

Basketball--Economic aspects--Illinois--Chicago.

Basketball.

Arenas--Economic aspects--Illinois--Chicago.

Arenas.

Near West Side (Chicago, Ill.)--Economic conditions.

Near West Side (Chicago, Ill.).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (304 pages).

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

The 1990s were a glorious time for the Chicago Bulls, an age of historic championships and all-time basketball greats like Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan. It seemed only fitting that city, county, and state officials would assist the team owners in constructing a sparkling new venue to house this incredible team that was identified worldwide with Chicago. That arena, the United Center, is the focus of Bulls Markets, an unvarnished look at the economic and political choices that forever reshaped one of America's largest cities-arguably for the worse. Sean Dinces shows how the construction of the United Center reveals the fundamental problems with neoliberal urban development. The pitch for building the arena was fueled by promises of private funding and equitable revitalization in a long blighted neighborhood. However, the effort was funded in large part by municipal tax breaks that few ordinary Chicagoans knew about, and that wound up exacerbating the rising problems of gentrification and wealth stratification. In this portrait of the construction of the United Center and the urban life that developed around it, Dinces starkly depicts a pattern of inequity that has become emblematic of contemporary American cities: governments and sports franchises collude to provide amenities for the wealthy at the expense of poorer citizens, diminishing their experiences as fan and-far worse-creating an urban environment that is regulated and surveilled for the comfort and protection of that same moneyed elite.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Bullish on Image: Basketball and the Promotion of Postindustrial Chicago

2. "Normally, Heroes Cost You Money": Bulls Fans in the New Gilded Age

3. The Bulls as "Good Business": The United Center and Redeveloping Chicago's Near West Side

4. Anchor or Shipwreck? The United Center and Economic Development in West Haven

5. "Peanut Envy": The United Center's War against Sidewalk Vendors

6. "Nothing but Net Profi ts": Public Dollars and Tax Policy at the United Center

Conclusion

Appendix A: Logistic Regression Analysis of 1993 General Social Survey Data

Appendix B: City of Chicago, Cook County, and Illinois State Campaign Contributions by United Center Ownership and Executives, 1980 - 2016

Appendix C: United Center Property- Tax Savings

Appendix D: United Center Amusement- Tax Savings

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 22. Okt 2019)

ISBN:

9780226583358

022658335X

OCLC:

1062395932