@coolcanadian agree with you that if Toronto is going to build a casino, that Melbourne is a good example to follow from. In fact I mentioned so earlier in this
thread. I wanted to buy
this book to learn more about the urban design that went into Melbourne's casino and the impact on the city... but $45+ is a bit steep for the purpose of an internet debate. However I do truly hope that the Toronto city council and Ontario government are looking at this as a source of learning that can be applied to a casino here.
I remember when the casino was first proposed in Melbourne and it received a similar negative reaction. The state premier at the time, Jeff Kennett was a bit of a stubborn guy (even more stubborn than your typical Aussie). He was on a real kick to build Melbourne into an international destination (sounding familiar to the "world class city" comments?
). Melbourne still had a lot of it's beautiful architecture built during the gold rush, a fantastic cafe/restaurant scene hidden down lane ways and a European flair mixed with the down to earth Aussie nature... but it was missing something big to draw the Tourists in the hope that they would stay and discover the every day delights of the city. The Olympics had come and gone in 1956 and raised Melbourne's name a little bit.. plus the Australian Open tennis was keeping the city's name out there but from a tourist's standpoint Australia is the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House, a big red rock and the great barrier reef.
So what was Jeff to do? Well to start, he helped take the Formula 1 race away from Adelaide and moved it to Melbourne.. another world class sporting event can't hurt. Then he built a new Museum (plus we got our first IMAX theatre). Then he built a new Exhibition center nicknamed "Jeff's Shed". The problem is Jeff's Shed looked awfully modern and out of place with it's surroundings and the state was having serious budget problems.. so simple solution let's build Jeff's Casino right beside the Shed.. two birds with one stone. Against some of the future returns supposed to come out of the casino he funded an expansion to the National Gallery and a beautiful upgrade to the State Library. According to wiki he also used some of it to fund the new aquatic center as well as the new town center "Federation Square" (although I don't think those were built until the early 2000s). The guy also started building tunnels underneath of Melbourne to alleviate the traffic coming in from the major freeways into the city. He also kicked off the revitalization of the Dockland's area with a new massive stadium and transport links. Locals may not say their transit system is world class, but believe me it's generations ahead of Toronto partially due to the investments that came in during this time. All of this happened in an 8 year period.
How did he fund it all? By basically being a dick and killing the public education budget, laying off lots of teachers. Also privatizing anything he could get his hands on. Once the casino was built and handing money back to the government, it did help to offset a lot of the costs of this massive rebuilding of the city.
The fear mongering of a new casino by the media was high (even though Aussie's were already used to gambling on "pokies" [slot machines] at the local pub). Then as it was being built, lots of accusations of corruption in the process. Then once it was built, the horror stories of Grandma losing her pension at the slot machines and children being left unattended in a car as their parents went inside to get their jollies on. Sad stuff, but children get left unattended when parents go the supermarket as well.. still makes the newspaper, just with the anger focused on the parents instead of the establishment they were visiting. Then when the G20 protest occurred in Melbourne, the casino was the target site as it symbolized greed and maybe a little bit of the loss of the "Australia for Australians" culture.
That said 18 years later, socially the casino has become more accepted and it still generates a nice chunk of money for the government. Either directly through the taxes it generates or indirectly through it's influence of bringing people to the area it's still stimulating re-development of the city. The Docklands area grows and grows each time I go back. The neighborhood slightly to the east "South Melbourne" is being gentrified and turned into a place where young professionals want to live. There is a whole new neighborhood just to the south called "South Wharf". On the Southbank area (where the casino is located) there is Melbourne's newest tallest tower. The Southbank area has become an incredibly popular area for tourist and locals alike with all of the restaurant and entertainment options.. plus it's right next to the beautiful botanical gardens and just a stroll across the river to the central business district. Some of the casino money was also used to fund the redevelopment of the major regional train station "Southern Cross". It was also partially used to help fund the transition to the MyKi transit card system (similar to the Presto system they are trying to get going here).. granted I don't think it works perfectly yet.. but time will hopefully fix that.
A quick google search is not returning much on historical trends for international visitors to Melbourne.. so I can't say if all this rebuilding of the city actually achieved its goal of making the city a bigger international destination. The only source I found was this
www.auscasinos.com/pdf/media/CasinosandtheAusEconomy.pdf but it seems to be written by the casino industry so I'll leave it be.
So did Melbourne do it perfectly? No some mistakes were made along the way... but in my opinion it's turned out pretty well for the city in the end. Definitely one of the better sources of inspirations and learnings from around the world for Toronto to go by.
