When a post-industrial city bets big on casino gambling.

Apr 2 2016

We often think of extractive industries in the environmental sense - that there is a finite amount of resources that can be drawn out of the earth - but in the case of landfills, or prisons, or casinos, they're extractive in a social and economic sense. While there may be some short term gains, it's unclear what the longterm effects on a community could be.

American studies scholar Chloe Taft examines the transformation of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania from post-industrial decline to casino profit-fuelled stability, and finds another city in America struggling to balance the rewards of short term stability with the risks of increased corporate influence on civic planning and local government.

Chloe is the author of From Steel to Slots: Casino Capitalism in the Postindustrial City from Harvard University Press.