Back in January of this year, Spotify gave me a belated Christmas/Birthday present. Either the song slinger's elves or AI was busy cranking the numbers over the holiday and determined my most played artist of 2023 was JJ Grey. Along with that revelation was a recorded message from Grey himself with a "thank you" for the honor. This garnered a rare nod of acknowledgement from this closet luddite, “Huh. That’s pretty cool!”
I’m not sure if Spotify also named my most played song from Gray, but if I were to hazard a guess, it would have been “Lochloosa”. My very first exposure to this song was the closing scene on an episode of House back in 2010. The opening strains got my attention, and when the lyrics kicked in, it was like finding my long lost musical broheim.
Through verse, he painted a picture of his idyllic hometown that had come under siege by unconstrained development catering to rampant tourism. This sounded, then and now, uncannily like the slow simmering clash developing around Long Beach between the pro- and anti-casino camps.
I understand the need for the town to grow its revenue base; Long Beach taxes ain’t no joke. But to exchange the picturesque and scenic beauty of the coastal drive down Highway 90 for a glitzy, shimmering casino and swapping the hypnotic sound of wind and waves crashing on a sandy shore for the cacophonous din of a slot machine den seems like a bad trade.
Up the main drag and north of the tracks stands abundant derelict acreage that was already zoned for industrial use. The site of the old Oreck factory has been largely unused since Hurricane Katrina. Why could it not be repurposed as a supplier for the needs of nearby tech and industrial hubs? The old industrial park is in very close proximity to Stennis Space Center and a short, 50-mile drive on I-10 to Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula. Alternatively, any product already has railroad transport available on site to Gulfport as well as the nearby ports of New Orleans and Mobile.
I feel there are other more strategic options other than dropping a casino in downtown Long Beach. I think people may overestimate the revenue these behemoths will bring into the local economy when they have their own restaurants and hotels already on the premises. If looking at Atlantic City and Vegas are any indication, the locally adjacent areas don’t always fare well.
I’d much rather have oak-lined streets draped in Spanish moss, the smell of brine in the air, an occasional train whistle receding into the distance, and the brightest thing around being the sun setting over the water.
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