Suckers

Remember when Amazon had its "competition" for their new headquarters, every medium->large city in the country (including Philadelphia) spent 6 months devoting itself entirely to "completing the application" and then the winners were New York (never built) and suburban DC (where Bezos lives).

Everybody else just did free work for Amazon, ignoring other issues.

The City of Philadelphia and its transit agency were completely wrapped up in providing its basketball team a bargaining chip for two years, distracting them from other priorities.

I was against the Center City arena because it was clear to me, from the various submitted plans, that they didn't have any idea what they were doing, that they weren't even bothering to try to figure out the logistical issues.

I thought this was because they were dumbasses. I was wrong! It was because they really weren't trying too hard because they never expected to build it! 

It was obvious they didn't even try to figure out the transit logistics in a serious way. The local transit authority did try to make this point, but almost no one who runs city government ever uses the local transit authority, so they have no idea and they were not going to listen.