The Rise and Fall of Atlantic City

"A long experiment with legalized gambling, launched in 1976, has failed to reenergize this once-iconic locale"

It didn't fail exactly in the way this sentence seems to want to imply. It did work (and it significantly built up the surrounding areas). What killed Atlantic City post gambling 1976, was other states legalizing gambling and cannibalizing the market that they had to themselves and Las Vegas. Also gaming on Indian reservations. And a decision early on not to move poor people out of Atlantic City [1] (similar to what Las Vegas did) making it less attractive as a vacation spot. There is blight all over and close to the equivalent of "the strip" for lack of a better way to put it.

[1] http://articles.philly.com/2010-07-29/news/24970511_1_casino...

Much longer article about same subject http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/09/07/the-death-and-l...

Not mentioned in the article is the effect air conditioning had on where people go for vacation. Atlantic City was one of the escapes from the hot summer heat. Now you just turn down the thermostat.

Very interesting read for me in special. I happened to be there for the first time this past Saturday. What an awful place. Truly shady and scary. Dirty, it seemed like a ghost town.

+1 for City Journal, love that stuff.