Not quite the same thing (I’d argue it’s even worse, but it’s in a different way—less land, but promoting animal cruelty and gambling instead) but a politician in my city recently proposed a plan to replace one of the two major horse racing tracks with rewilded parks, walking tracks, and significant amounts of public housing.
One race track, less than 100 m away from another race track, could provide the space to house up to 10,000 residents, and still have room for multiple sports tracks, general parkland, a new school, and more. Even ignoring the housing, doing the rest of it would provide so much more value to so many more people than the wasteful horse racing track would.
But of course, it won’t actually happen. Because the guy that proposed this isn’t from one of the two main parties. And the main parties are both in the pockets of the gambling industry.
Not quite the same thing (I’d argue it’s even worse, but it’s in a different way—less land, but promoting animal cruelty and gambling instead) but a politician in my city recently proposed a plan to replace one of the two major horse racing tracks with rewilded parks, walking tracks, and significant amounts of public housing.
One race track, less than 100 m away from another race track, could provide the space to house up to 10,000 residents, and still have room for multiple sports tracks, general parkland, a new school, and more. Even ignoring the housing, doing the rest of it would provide so much more value to so many more people than the wasteful horse racing track would.
But of course, it won’t actually happen. Because the guy that proposed this isn’t from one of the two main parties. And the main parties are both in the pockets of the gambling industry.