Would that Baltimore were Radiator Springs, the dilapidated, melancholy town off Route 66 revitalized almost single-handedly and instantaneously by race car Lightning McQueen in the Pixar movie "Cars."
Fate dealt Radiator Springs a bad hand when Interstate 40 bypassed the town, detouring traffic from the once thriving, neon-lit locale to new destinations. McQueen rescued it, however, repairing not only the road he destroyed but all the businesses, too. Later, he attracts a Ferrari and other luminary cars to the once-abandoned city in New Mexico.
The animated movie offers great lessons in friendship, love and personal excellence. But sadly for Baltimore, race cars are no panacea for what ails this city, a shell of its once larger, more productive and bustling self.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake called the recent Grand Prix a "game-changer" for Baltimore. But a closer look shows it is just one more flashy attempt to distract residents from the city's real problems.
As UMBC sports economist Dennis Coates said, "In terms of the city growing faster, incomes being higher and the number of people employed being greater because of the event … none of that will happen."
Despite predictions by race organizers and the mayor's office, most jobs related to the Grand Prix are temporary. And while the event may bump tax receipts for the weekend it runs, visitors will likely not make return visits for non-racing events. As Mr. Coates said, fans follow their sport. He cited World Cup matches as another example of how people will travel for an event but won't make return visits to the host country or city.
Of note for the Grand Prix: One of Mr. Coates' colleagues surveyed more than 200 people at the race. A preliminary examination shows the majority of people visiting that day were from Maryland. If that is the case, it means most attendees were day trippers and spent less in the city than visitors from out of state, who would likely require lodging. It also means that the net impact for Maryland could be neutral if the race shifted money around the state instead of attracting new wealth.
Also, this was a novel event that attracted many people because of the newness of it. Two years or five years from now, will people still feel the same sense of excitement? Or will they say, "I've been there, done that, we don't need to do that again," as Mr. Coates suggested?
The race dollars also bypassed a large swath of Baltimore, not unlike most development projects in the city. I spoke with a restaurant owner in Little Italy last week on WBAL who said the neighborhood was a ghost town race weekend. She also said her restaurant lost thousands of dollars as a result of all the food she bought after assurances from the city that visitors would flock to the area. Restaurant owners also bought special permits for outside dining and alcohol that turned out to be useless. Low TV ratings also show the event was not nearly as great a marketing tool as organizers and the mayor promised.
None of this is to say the event was not a lot of fun and well managed by most accounts. Many callers to WBAL's "The Ron Smith Show" last week, while I was guest-hosting, said they thoroughly enjoyed themselves and thought the drivers, in particular, went out of their way to accommodate fans.
I am really glad people enjoyed the race. But the issue is not whether it was fun, but why city officials always focus their energies on events and building projects that do not attract more business, people and jobs to our borders.
That question is the reason why lowering property taxes became such a central theme in the mayoral race this year — and why it won't go away in coming years — despite the incumbent's constant dismissal of its impact on the city's health and finances.
There is a reason people are evacuating Baltimore City and Prince George's and Montgomery counties and flocking to Frederick, Carroll and Harford counties: opportunity or the lack thereof. It's a fantasy to think that one race, one more condo complex or a new arena will turn around the fortune of the city. That only happens in the movies.
Marta H. Mossburg is a senior fellow at the Maryland Public Policy Institute and a fellow at the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity. Her column appears regularly in The Baltimore Sun. Her email is martamossburg@gmail.com.