From Steel to Slots: Casino Capitalism in the Postindustrial City

Amazon.com Price: $39.95 (as of 02/05/2019 22:56 PST- Details)

Description

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was once once synonymous with steel. But after the factories closed, the city bet its future on a new industry: casino gambling. On the site of the former Bethlehem Steel plant, thousands of flashing slot machines and digital bells replaced the fires in the blast furnaces and the shift change whistles of the industrial place of job. From Steel to Slots tells the story of a city struggling to make sense of the ways in which local jobs, landscapes, and identities are transformed by global capitalism.

Postindustrial redevelopment ceaselessly makes a clean break with a city’s rusted past. In Bethlehem, where the new casino is industrial-themed, the city’s heritage continues to dominate the built environment and infuse on a regular basis experiences. Through the voices of steelworkers, casino dealers, preservationists, immigrants, and executives, Chloe Taft examines the ongoing legacies of corporate presence and urban development in a small city―and their uneven effects.

Today, multinational casino corporations an increasing number of act as urban planners, promising jobs and new tax revenues to sick communities. Yet in an industry premised on risk and capital liquidity, short-term gains do not necessarily mean long-term commitments to local needs. At the same time as residents ceaselessly have few cards to play in the face of global capital and private development, Taft argues that the shape economic progress takes isn’t inevitable, nor will have to it at all times look forward. Memories of corporations’ accountability to communities persist, and citizens see alternatives for more equitable futures in the layered landscapes all around them.

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