What is your Big Idea for Philadelphia?
Atlantic City: America's Healthcare Resort
Atlantic City has lost 6,000 jobs in the last 6 months with
the closure of 4 casinos. This economic meltdown is due to the reliance on one
industry – gaming – to prop up the city’s economy. Is Atlantic City slated to
become the next Detroit?
Atlantic City needs to diversify its economy to save the
city. My suggestion is for Atlantic City to become America’s healthcare resort.
By repurposing shuttered casinos into East Coast branches of the country’s premier
healthcare centers, the city can remake itself as a different kind of
destination - one that has a more robust economic foundation.
Alex
Feldman is a designer, planner, and real estate professional that cares
deeply about cities. A native of Philadelphia, Alex studied
architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and graduated from the
Cities Programme at the London School of Economics. After working at
both the London and New York offices of Kohn Pedersen Fox Architects,
Alex returned to Philadelphia in 2009 to work for U3 Advisors, a
boutique advisory and real estate development firm that works with urban
anchor institutions on economic and real estate development strategies. Now a Vice President with the firm, Alex is involved in both the advisory and development capacities of the firm, providing expertise in strategic planning, economic development, campus edge planning, and real estate strategy. He has managed projects in a host of cities
including Detroit, MI; Brownsville, TX; and Beirut, Lebanon. When not on
the road, Alex resides in the Graduate Hospital neighborhood of
Philadelphia.
In Atlantic city just work for the government. The median wage for federal, state, and local government is much higher than the median for any private sector area according to the census:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.towncharts.com/New-Jersey/Economy/Atlantic-City-city-NJ-Economy-data.html#Figure33