CREATIVE DESTRUCTION.

Give Arian Horbovetz the Trenchant Observation of the Day.

In your city, the number of options for good food and booze has likely increased significantly over the last 10 years. But since our median incomes haven’t doubled, or even close, the amount of money we allocate for eating and drinking out has obviously not increased enough to support them all. Instead, we will likely see a virtual “survival of the shiniest” as the new and hip trends overtake the old standbys.

And this is nothing new in urban commerce, especially with regard to the restaurant and bar scene. Evolution has always been a part of this dynamic. It is, however, something we often take for granted. As our options for a night out grow and increase, be it a sporting event, a bar crawl or an incredible Farm-To-Table dinner, our budgets to enjoy all that our cities have to offer likely do not. The more plausible reality is that we simply take our money that we used to spend in a few places and we spend it in a few others, a scenario that will obviously lead to the untimely end for many of our longstanding options.

This concept is especially important to understand when we talk about casinos, large scale entertainment districts, and the subsidizing of entertainment options. Ultimately, these new and shiny things will simply split our budgets further, putting a greater hurt on other local business owners. When we talk about growth, or an increase in “vibrancy,” we have to be very conscious about where the energy (in this case, patrons) is coming from. There is only so much financial and temporal fuel for growth and change in our communities, so when talking about growth, we must be cognizant of what is growing and what is just being redistributed.

That doesn't change just because tax money is being used to pick winners, or, more frequently these days, to keep the current sports team from leaving.