That was the news, now here's the hard-hitting analysis: This is obviously great for the unions and the gaming industry, but I didn't see anything about how this bill would improve the housing stock of Atlantic City. One of the original purposes of casino gaming was to make Atlantic City a better place to live and halt the exodus of the middle class. It seems that this has been completely forgotten; the new goal is to maintain revenues in the face of competition from slot parlors. Talk about collapsed expectations.

Can the city pay Caesars $64 million not to build a hotel tower on top of its new parking garage? Aesthetically, these things are just ugly, and I can't imagine that people spending the night there feel like high rollers: "Yeah, we got a great room over the garage! It was phenomenal!" Right.

As an Atlantic City native, it's great to see all of this development, but it would also be nice to see a little more done to make the city a more attractive place to live. With 50,000 or so casino employees, many of them commuting over an hour each way, there are certainly people who would be well served to live in the city.