One positive effect of the Democratic National Convention is that it brought one of my favorite authors, James Lileks, to town. James Lileks blogs the convention for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and has an interesting take on the economics of conventions.
We’re also told that the conventions are a tremendous economic boon. For hotels and restaurants and bars and taxi drivers who don’t think you know they’re taking the long way, sure. But a tour of downtown Denver off the 16th street mall reveals a downtown unaffected by the event. I’m sitting in a food court at the moment; it’s noon, and the place is mostly empty. Why? It’s three stories above the mall, and tourists can’t be bothered to take an escalator up when there are so many ground-level options.
The manager at the suburban restaurant where I dined last night said the impact of the [ Democratic National ] convention was, and I quote, “Zero.” Freeway traffic seems smooth – the hellishly fast run downtown this morning went as quickly as possible, except for the moment when the driver nearly put us all through the windshield when he hit the brakes to avoid a blue barrel in the middle of the road. Downtown traffic is remarkably smooth, considering that they’ve routed everyone away from the Pepsidrome, and you couldn’t get through the barricades with anything less than an M-1 Abrams.
This is my experience as well. I've maneuvered in and out of downtown Denver quite easily. Likely, the smaller-than-anticipated protester turnout helps matters to some degree. However, Thursday I-25 closure will likely still cause gridlock in the city. All in all, it appears that many (non-retail) businesses closed down for the Democratic National Convention.
As for the promised economic boon to the city, a group of smaller conventions would have made the same amount of money without the radically increased security hassles. Restaurants would likely be just as busy in that scenario. What the final government price tag for this week will be may never be discovered. However, things seem to be running mostly smoothly for this week's Democrat infomercial/party, and Denver is receiving good press because of it.
by Civil Sense
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