With or without gambling, it may be possible for much good to come from Casino dreaming. Pittsburgh will soon have a casino. Several developers have.... With or without gambling, it may be possible for much good to come from Casino dreaming. Pittsburgh will soon have a casino. Several developers have proposals on the table, but there will be only one casino license. In the end, it would seem a shame for all the plans to go to waste for lack of license. Faced with the prospect of not getting a license, the dreamers seem to be asking: "do we really need a casino to make this work?"

It's a good question to ask, and more often the answer seems to be "no."

Word is Forest City may develop South Shore condos with or without the Casino license. Likewise, after pulling his bid for a North Shore Casino near PNC Park, a man named Merrill Stabile now wants to develop anyway.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (which undoubtably must find some joy in the new parking garage rising in front of the competition's sign), Stabile and Kratsa Properties are putting together plans for a proposed residential, retail, entertainment and hotel development at the site.

More often than not, what developers and planners are coming up with are dense mixed-use developments with casino's in them. These kinds of developments, sometimes known as cities, have existed for centuries. We are perhaps now realizing they will work with or without casinos.