Two generations ago, city economies relied on money from the products they manufactured.
Faraway customers purchased Fords, Zeniths, Maytags, and Levi’s, and their cash made its way to the factory foreman and his workers, who would then spread the wealth to the local butcher and baker. In the postindustrial visitor economy, however, the city itself becomes the product, and cities must contrive reasons for people to visit. Enter the convention center.

At any given moment, the average American convention center is buzzing with accountants, motivational speakers, comic book collectors and other hordes of professionals and enthusiasts — adding up to 12,000 events a year. As the demand for spaces in which to buy, sell, make deals and exchange information has boomed, formerly modest meeting halls have ballooned into spaces that could swallow a typical Wal-Mart whole. Since 1993 American cities have invested more than $23 billion in ever-larger boxes that now number more than 320, and since 2000 the country’s total convention space increased by 25 percent to nearly 90 million square feet, which collectively eclipses the commercial space in all but two of America’s largest central business districts. Chicago’s McCormick Place alone spans 2.6 million square feet, with contiguous spaces that could hold about as many superlatives as you care to fit. The story of a single convention center would be an unremarkable tale. There is no Guggenheim Bilbao, but no Pruitt-Igoe either.

The story of convention centers is that, for all cities do to distinguish themselves, the convention industry treats cities not as places but rather as spaces — fungible, interchangeable and characterless. Even though convention centers are marketed with Platonic conceptions of cities (palm trees, skyscrapers, longhorns, slot machines), the convention economy is one of placelessness. “Most of them have removed themselves from the community they’re in by virtue of becoming developments that are about drawing people into the city, not about being integrated in the city culture and fabric,” says Fred Kent, president of the Project for Public Spaces, which advocates for attractive, energized public spaces. Even so, convention centers might seem tolerably innocuous — they don’t pollute (directly), they don’t bulldoze historic neighborhoods (usually), and they pay for themselves — except when they don’t.

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