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African Supercomputers to Power Next Phase of Development

Post author By David South Consulting
Post date 20/02/2021
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By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Information technology developments in Africa have long lagged behind those in other parts of the world. But the transformation being brought about by the widespread adoption and use of mobile phones – each one a mini-computer – and the expansion of undersea fibre optic cable connections to Africa are creating the conditions for an exciting new phase of computing growth on the continent.

Despite the global economic crisis, Africa is on course to see annual consumer spending reach US $1.4 trillion by 2020, nearly double the US $860 billion in 2008 (McKinsey). On top of this, by 2050, a projected 63 per cent of Africa’s population will be urban dwellers. With Africa’s middle class the fastest-growing in the world – doubling in less than 20 years – matching computing power with this consuming urban population could unleash a treasure trove of opportunity for information technology entrepreneurs.

These developments are creating the conditions for game-changing computing in the next years. And this is encouraging the creation of a new supercomputer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercomputer) for Africa in Kenya that will double the total number of supercomputers in Africa. Hugely powerful compared to personal or commercial computers, supercomputers use cutting-edge technology to carry out high-speed calculations involving vast quantities of data.

Expanded supercomputing power brings numerous advantages to both economic and human development. It will radically alter what can be accomplished in Africa – allowing mass data processing to be done, highly complex and data dense applications to be run, and very large research projects to be conducted on the continent rather than overseas.

Increasing computing power in Africa will bring in its wake, it is hoped, a surge in economic and research opportunities.

It will help African researchers and scientists to undertake globally competitive projects, rather than seeing this work done overseas. It will also open up a vast range of possibilities for African entrepreneurs and businesses to do complex data processing, modelling and research and will enable them to become more sophisticated operations.

The new supercomputer, the iHub Cluster, is being built in the Kenyan capital by one of Africa’s pioneering information technology hubs – iHub Nairobi (http://ihub.co.ke/pages/home.php) – in partnership with Internet products and services company Google and microchip maker Intel Corporation.

Africa’s first supercomputer is located in South Africa and is ranked 497 in terms of computing power on the list of 500 supercomputers in the world (http://www.top500.org/).

It is located in the “Tsessebe cluster” in Cape Town’s Centre for High Performance Computing (http://www.chpc.ac.za/).

“With mobile devices coming in multiple cores, it is important for developers to be exposed to higher performance computing; we are hoping to debut at a higher level than ‘Tsessebe cluster’,” Jimmy Gitonga, the project team leader for the iHub cluster, told Computer World.

Africa suffers from poor supercomputer capacity and this has had a knock-on affect on everything to do with economic development. The iHub supercomputer hopes to help universities and colleges to gain competitive edge and be able to undertake more complex research in the fields of media, pharmaceuticals and biomedical engineering.

“In Africa, we need to be on top of the mobile scene, its our widest used device,” Gitonga told Computer World.

Some of the practical applications for the iHub supercomputer in East Africa and the Horn of Africa include improving weather forecasting and drought prediction, increasing the ability to give advance warning of droughts and famines in the region.

“Most of the United Nations agencies and international agencies operating in the region have extensive field research on how to tackle natural disasters in the region. Imagine if they had affordable space where they can meet with developers and test resource-hungry applications,” Gitonga said.

The iHub also wants to offer the services of the supercomputer to researchers and organizations who have had to go abroad to have their data processed.
The iHub supercomputer hopes to be used by mobile phone developers, gamers, universities and research institutions.

In the last two years, China had pushed the United States out of the number one spot for supercomputers. The Tianhe-1A located at the National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin (http://www.nscc-tj.gov.cn/en/), China, was the fastest computer in the world from October 2010 to June 2011.

For those looking to see how they can make the most of the growing supercomputer capability in Africa, examples from other countries offer a good idea. Supercomputers can be used for weather forecasting, climate research, oil and gas exploration, physical simulations like when testing aircraft, complex modelling for medical research, processing complex social data necessary for delivering effective social programmes or running modern health care systems.

Published: October 2012

Resources

1) A video on how to use a supercomputer. Website:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvbSX–LOko

2) Southern Innovator Issue 1: Mobile Phones and Information Technology. Website:http://www.scribd.com/doc/95410448/Southern-Innovator-Magazine-Issue-1-Mobile-Phones-and-Information-Technology?in_collection=3643685

3) Read more about the iHub supercomputer. Website:http://www.ihub.co.ke/blog/2012/09/the-ihub-cluster/

4) More on High Performance Computing from Intel Corporation. Website:http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/high-performance-computing/server-reliability.html

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/11/african-botanicals-to-be-used-to-boost-fight-against-parasites/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/11/african-breakthroughs-to-make-life-better/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/20/african-bus-to-tackle-african-roads/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/19/african-culture-as-big-business/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/17/african-ingenuity-attracting-interest/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/15/african-innovators-celebrated-in-prize/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/02/african-online-supermarket-set-to-boost-trade/

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Tags 2012, 21st century, Africa, African Supercomputers to Power Next Phase of Development, AI, artificial intelligence, big data, Canada, code, computing power, data, data deluge, data harvesting, data mining, data revolution, data sharing, data surge, databases, David M South, David South, David South Consulting, Development Challenges, development challenges south-south solutions, DNA, fibre optic cables, genetics, genetics knowledge, geneva, health care, healthcare, human development, human development innovator, innovation, innovators, mass data, mobile networks, mobile phones, Mobile Phones and Information Technology, mobile-enabled devices, mobiles, October 2012, Published: October 2012, science, science and technology, Scientists, SDG9, South-South Case Study, South-South Solutions, Southern Innovator magazine, supercomputers, supercomputing, Tsessebe cluster, UNDP, United Nations, UNOSSC, Wi-Fi

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Rebuilding After Chinese Earthquake: Beautiful Bamboo Homes

Post author By David South Consulting
Post date 12/02/2021
No Comments on Rebuilding After Chinese Earthquake: Beautiful Bamboo Homes

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

It has been a year since the May 12, 2008 Sichuan earthquake in China that killed more than 70,000 people.

China’s strongest earthquake for more than half a century, with a magnitude of 8.0 (en.wikipedia.org), it devastated large parts of the province of Sichuan. More than 10 million people were made homeless, most of them poor and elderly villagers (cities were not badly damaged).

Getting Sichuan back to normal is critical for not only the province’s people, but for all of China. Sichuan is China’s rice bowl, growing more food than any other province. But despite the abundance of food, Sichuan remains poor and has seen its working age population move away for work. If it is to have a viable future then its communities need to get back to normal as fast as possible – and its farming economy back to full production.

The unprecedented media coverage of the disaster meant people across China saw the scenes of devastation and have since contributed large donations to help with the reconstruction. The Chinese government has pledged to spend US $151 billion on reconstruction projects.

Finding ways to re-house people after large disasters has become an urgent issue over the last five years. From the Asian tsunami to Hurricane Katrina in the United States and multiple hurricane disasters in the Caribbean, restoring communities is critical for the health of the people and the economies they rely on. Experience has shown that temporary shelters have many drawbacks, being usually of poor quality for long-term habitation and a source of health problems.

The temporary shelters erected for the Sichuan homeless are unsuitable for long-term housing: the 12 square metre grey boxes – two sheets of aluminium sandwiching a polystyrene core for insulation – have no heating. The occupants roast inside in the summer and freeze in the winter. They are also located away from the main source of income: the farms.

The dilemma is how to build new, long-term houses that will not cost too much. Inflation has increased the costs of conventional building materials: bricks, cement and steel.

But the use of traditional building materials and home designs offers an alternative. By drawing on the abundant bamboo and wood in Sichuan and by building to traditional designs, cheaper but sturdy and beautiful homes can be built.

An average home now costs around 80,000 yuan (US $11,688). The Chinese government estimates the price is now 820 yuan per square meter for a new home: bamboo homes cost between 300 and 400 yuan per square meter. Government compensation is between 16,000 yuan (US $2,337) and 23,000 yuan (US $3,360) per family. The bamboo houses range in size from 75 to 200 square metres, and in cost from 22,500 yuan to 80,000 yuan for a very large home.

In Daping village, Pengzhou Town, original homes destroyed by the earthquake sit at the edge of a forested hill. Their frames are more or less intact, but the walls and roofs have collapsed. The new houses replacing them are large, two stories high and have solid grey clay tile roofs. The beauty of the designs stands out and sits in stark contrast to the temporary shelters and concrete buildings.

“There are 43 houses and two public buildings being rebuilt in this project,” says team member Hu Rong Rong of the Green Building Research Centre of Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology. “The design and the main building material are based on the ecological and sustainable habitat idea. The place (Sichuan) is rich in bamboo and wood. These natural materials are cheap and friendly to the environment. In some buildings we use light steel which can be also recycled.”

The new homes are built to earthquake resistance standards. Led by Professor LiuJiaping, a team of 15 people from the research centre and two from a design institute developed the home designs and supervised the training of local people. They were joined by 10 people from an NGO called Global Village of Beijing, who managed the project to completion.

“All the designs were discussed with the local people,” continues Hu. “We trained a local construction team, which means the local people would build their own houses by themselves. Both our research center and the local people were involved in developing the home design.

“To get the trust from the local people is a challenge in the project. We resolved it by showing our respect to the local people. Before we started our design we discussed with the local people many times to know what kind of house they like. We built the first house to make them believe us.”

Hu believes it is possible to replicate the homes across Sichuan.

“The design is suitable for other villages in Sichuan which have a similar climate and culture with this village. To rebuild sustainable houses after a disaster we should know well about the local life, environment and culture – try to find the useful technique which was used in their traditional houses and upgrade the traditional house to meet the need of their modern life.”

Others have not been as lucky as these villagers. In the village of Yuan Bao, Chen Jingzhong, 66, has had to build a makeshift shack: “They wanted to get us to build our own houses but they didn’t give us enough money,” Chen told the Telegraph Magazine. “All we could afford was this shack, which we built ourselves, with our own hands and without any help from anyone.”

Published: May 2009

Resources

Architecture for Humanity: By tapping a network of more than 40,000 professionals willing to lend time and expertise to help those who would not otherwise be able to afford their services, they bring design, construction and development services where they are most critically needed. Website: www.architectureforhumanity.org

Chinese Red Cross: The Red Cross Society of China is accepting donations for disaster reconstruction and is coordinating rebuilding efforts in Sichuan Website: http://www.redcross.org.cn/ywzd/

Gerd Niemoeller has developed flat pack, cardboard homes that can be deployed quickly after a disaster and can become permanent homes.Website: http://tinyurl.com/6t6jtf and the company
Website: http://www.wall.de/en/home

Global Greenhouse Warming is a website that tracks extreme weather events around the world: drought, flooding, severe storms, severe winter, tropical cyclone, wildfires, and extreme heat waves.Website: www.global-greenhouse-warming.com

The Building and Social Housing Foundation: An independent research organization promoting sustainable development and innovation in housing through collaborative research and knowledge transfer. Website: www.bshf.org

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/09/01/disaster-recovery-ten-years-after-the-gujarat-india-experience/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/11/12/energy-efficient-wooden-houses-are-also-earthquake-safe/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/09/01/haiti-earthquake-prompts-tech-aid/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/02/12/rammed-earth-houses-china-shows-how-to-improve-and-respect-traditional-homes/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/09/26/3d-home-printing-landmark-10-houses-in-a-day/

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/05/southern-innovator-issue-4/

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

© David South Consulting 2023

Archive Blogroll Development Challenges, South-South Solutions Newsletters Southern Innovator magazine

Cuba’s Hurricane Recovery Solution

Post author By David South Consulting
Post date 04/02/2021
No Comments on Cuba’s Hurricane Recovery Solution

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

(Havana, Cuba), November 2008

SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

The frequency of extreme weather in the past decade has been attributed to global warming (http://tinyurl.com/5peel). Many scientists believe the future will bring even more turbulent weather events and disasters. The devastation and hardship brought by natural disasters can eradicate development gains, and destroy livelihoods and health. It is critical countries help people to get back to their normal lives as fast as possible.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (http://www.ipcc.ch) says extreme weather events will become more frequent, more widespread and/or more intense during the 21st century. Extreme weather is already costly for countries in the global South. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) found that the cost of droughts, storm surges, hurricanes and floods reached a record US$210 billion in 2005.

The Caribbean island of Cuba (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba) was particularly affected in 2008 by extreme weather, as the island was battered by two devastating hurricanes – Ike and Gustav – and a lesser one, Paloma. It was the only time that three major hurricanes have hit Cuba in the same season, with just a 10 day gap between Gustav and Ike. The hurricanes were described as the “worst ever” storms by Cuban officials

The cost to Cuba has been high: Damages from Ike and Gustav are estimated at more than US$5 billion (http://tinyurl.com/ba7xny).

Between 2001 and 2005, Cuba experienced seven major hurricanes. Half a million houses were damaged, and 90,000 destroyed. In the 2008 storms, 619,981 homes were damaged and 70,409 destroyed, with 468,995 homes losing their roof tiles.

But Cuba has developed a pioneering way to quickly rebuild after disasters on a tight budget and using local resources. By using so-called ecomaterials – construction materials that are ecologically and economically viable – the Cuban approach erects sturdy homes, rather than just temporary shelters.

It is a common experience after a disaster in a developing country for all the resources to be spent on imported emergency shelter – tents, shacks, plastic sheeting – that then become permanent and inadequate homes. These makeshift dwellings provide poor security and shelter from the elements. For Cuba, the enormous scale of the repair and reconstruction job is especially difficult because of the fuel shortages and building supply restrictions brought on by the United States’ embargo on the country (http://tinyurl.com/4alwrb). In turn, Cubans are adaptable and creative with their solutions.

The Cuban approach builds permanent homes that can be expanded, teaches homebuilding skills and creates permanent employment in manufacturing building materials.

By developing technologies to manufacture building materials – bricks, concrete blocks, cement, roofing tiles, bamboo furniture – on site using local resources, the approach lets homeless people themselves rebuild sturdy, high-quality homes, rather than waiting for outside building crews to come and do it, or being dependent on expensive, imported building materials. By doing this, jobs are created and wealth and gets the community back on its feet after the disaster.

“This is all about going back to the roots: wood, concrete and bricks,” said the passionate brains behind this approach, Fernando Martirena, a professor at CIDEM — the Centre for Research and Development of Structures and Materials — at the Universidad Central de Las Villas, in Santa Clara , Cuba (www.ecosur.org).

“The so-called free market has demonstrated it can not tackle this problem of the urgent housing crisis in the world.”

At the heart of the Cuban approach are easy-to-use machines that produce the building materials. They range from hand-cranked presses that make mud and clay bricks, to vibrating presses for concrete brick making.

Training the homeless population to do the building themselves allows reconstruction work to begin straight away, rather than waiting for professional building crews to arrive on the scene. It is also psychologically more empowering for the people to be active participants in the rebuilding of their lives. The pride the people have in their new homes is visible.

And quality has been critical for the programme so it can become sustainable and long-lasting:

“The driving force for this project is need,” Martirena said. “If we want to obtain sustainability, we must go beyond need. After disaster, need is the driving force. But after two years, when most things have been completed, it must be a business. Good, beautiful, cheap. Normally, this technology is cheaper than industrial technology.”

To stay prepared for future natural disasters that destroy or damage homes, the Cubans have established strategic reserves of micro-concrete roofing tiles. The lightweight but strong tiles can be used to quickly erect a small module home, and then the home can be expanded and built on as resources and time allow.

Martirena, a former UNHABITAT award-winner, believes this approach to building materials brings prosperity back to rural areas and helps stem the flood of people to cities and urban sprawl seen across the global South.

“You have to go back to the origin of the problem: people are looking for money and better jobs. It is not because they like the cities; they hate the cities!”

“Bamboo harvesting (for furniture making) can bring people three times more income than they would make in the cities. They are really making money.”

For Cuba, this has been a journey from a highly centralised and fuel-dependent approach to house building, to a decentralised, low-fuel approach. From 1959, the year of the revolution, until 1988, Cuba built housing using a centralised factory method to make building materials. Prefabricated houses were erected across the country. The materials were delivered by road and rail, all fuelled by cheap oil from the former Soviet Union.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, oil became scarce and the transport network the building industry depended on fell apart. This time was called the “special period.”

Apart from natural disasters, Cuba’s housing stock has suffered under the US embargo. The country’s housing began to decay as repairs were not happening and new houses were not being built. When people did want to do the repairs themselves, the lack of building supplies made it difficult for them to do so. Cuba realized it had to do things differently: the solutions had to be local, energy-efficient, and easy to use.

CIDEM oversees workshops, training and building teams across the country. It tests new materials and designs in its labs before they are deployed as building solutions. The ecomaterials are chosen for low energy use and the ability to recycle waste. Being inexpensive, they offer a sustainable solution for the poor.

In the community of Jatibonico, single mothers make up 40 percent of those who have benefited from the building projects. One woman proudly showed off the home she had built in the Spanish style, complete with Greco-roman columns on the porch. It has a clean, modern bathroom with shower and toilet.

Martirena is currently working on a book of case studies about CIDEM’s projects helping Cubans cope with reduced oil dependency.

CIDEM collaborates with universities around the world and has 19 workshops employing over 200 people in Cuba, and 15 in other countries in Latin America and Africa. It works with the Ecosur initiative and all the machines and advice on how to use them is available from the Ecosur website (www.ecosur.org).

Published: November 2008

Resources

“How Cuba Survived Peak Oil” is an award-winning film on how Cuba transitioned from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens. It is an unusual look into the Cuban culture during this economic crisis, which they call “The Special Period.” Website:http://www.powerofcommunity.org/cm/index.php
Global Greenhouse Warming is a website that tracks extreme weather events around the world: drought, flooding, severe storms, severe winter, tropical cyclone, wildfires, and extreme heat waves.Website:http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/extreme-weather.html
Cuba Hurricanes: Real-time reports of current hurricane threats to Cuba provided by an office in Old Havana. Also information on hurricanes of historical significance to Cuba. Website: http://www.cubahurricanes.org/
Gerd Niemoeller has developed flat pack, cardboard homes that can be deployed quickly after a disaster and can become permanent homes. Website: http://tinyurl.com/6t6jtf and the company website: http://www.wall.de/en/home
CIDEM and Ecosur specialise in building low-cost community housing using eco-materials. They have projects around the world and are based in Cuba. Website: http://www.ecosur.org

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/10/03/a-new-house-kit-for-slum-dwellers-that-is-safe-and-easy-to-build/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/05/23/debt-free-homes-for-the-poor/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/11/11/decent-and-affordable-housing-for-the-poor/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/16/housing-innovation-in-souths-urban-areas/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/11/11/housing-solution-for-worlds-growing-urban-population/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/02/12/rammed-earth-houses-china-shows-how-to-improve-and-respect-traditional-homes/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/02/12/rebuilding-after-chinese-earthquake-beautiful-bamboo-homes/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/05/23/solar-bottle-bulbs-light-up-dark-homes/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/09/26/3d-home-printing-landmark-10-houses-in-a-day/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/17/tiny-homes-to-meet-global-housing-crisis/

Southern Innovator Issue 4 featured many solutions to the world’s housing crisis.

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/05/southern-innovator-issue-4/

Sponsored by BSHF. BSHF is now called World Habitat and it aims to seek out and share the best solutions to housing problems from around the world.

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

Tags 2008, BSHF, Canada, Centre for Research and Development of Structures and Materials, CIDEM, climate change, COP26, COP26Glasgow, Cuba, Cuba’s Hurricane Recovery Solution, David M South, David South, David South Consulting, David South Editor, David South International, davidsouthconsulting, Development Challenges, development challenges south-south solutions, disaster, disaster recovery, ecomaterials, emergency shelter, extreme weather, global warming, Havana, hurricane, institute, institutes, IPCC, island, media tour, media tours, November 2008, Published: November 2008, recovery, Santa Clara, solution, South-South Solutions, Southern Innovator magazine, study tours, UNDP, UNEP, Universidad Central de Las Villas, UNOSSC, World Habitat

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Casino Calamity: One Gambling Guru Thinks The Province Is Going Too Far

Post author By David South Consulting
Post date 16/06/2020
No Comments on Casino Calamity: One Gambling Guru Thinks The Province Is Going Too Far

By David South

Id Magazine (Canada), May 16-29, 1996

Will Ontario become saturated with gambling? It is a question being asked more and more as the provincial government moves to allow unprecedented choice for gamblers.

Bars and hotels will soon have video one-armed bandits (known as video lottery terminals and slammed by the Addiction Research Foundation as video crack) and permanent charity casinos will be set up throughout the province.

Finance minister Ernie Eves’ budget may have brought joy to the hearts of the province’s gambling fanatics, but whether this is sound economic policy is less certain. Eves hopes to reap $60 million this year from the VLTs, or fruit machines.

Speaking to id under anonymity due to the sensitivity of his work, a private gambling consultant to the provincial government says the extended gambling could monkey-wrench the government’s on-going plans to build casinos to attract American tourists.

He says, “There is a maximum to any market area, to the number of people who will come. In Ontario, the idea was to have monopoly markets to create jobs and revenue for government. Spreading casinos out on the border areas would maximize jobs. But the introduction of VLT machines and permanent charity casinos means there will be a narrowing of the market. As soon as you set up the VLTs, there will be a permanent impact.”

He believes littering the province with casinos – both large and small – and VLTs, will be the equivalent of pissing in the wind for the government, arguing tourists will only be attracted to Ontario casinos if they consist of only a few, flashy must-see attractions based on the Las Vegas model.

Tourist temptation

The focus on tourists is key. Research has shown that gambling aimed at residents living near casinos can actually harm other local businesses like restaurants and movie theatres, as people spend more of their entertainment budgets on gambling. Add to this equation the fact that most of the profits go out of the community to Queen’s Park, and a casino can hurt local economies.

Knowing this, the government has instead focused on attracting tourists. In the case of the Windsor casino, it has worked – 80 per cent of gamblers there come from the US. The economic equation is simple: every dollar sucked in by the casino is a net gain for Canada that doesn’t hurt any other Canadian businesses (as for Detroit, that is anther story).

If the government keeps on its current course, Ontario could have 10 working government-owned casinos in the near future. By year’s end, the Windsor casino will be joined by Niagara Falls and the Rama First Nations casino near Orillia.

According to Anne Rappe of the government-owned Ontario Casino Corporation public outrage could change plans. “The government has been clear in its commitment to letting voters voice their view on casinos for other sites.”

Just a fad

Governments, like people, follow fads. The trend towards harder forms of gambling, like casinos and VLTs, as opposed to softer gambling like lotteries, represents a desperate move by local governments to hang on to tax revenues.

Even more than flashy schemes to build theme parks, art galleries and museums, casinos are seen as a sure-fire way to revive ailing communities by attracting tourists. Throughout North America, consultants and casino companies are telling government to turn to gambling if they hope to boost public treasuries and generate jobs. The pitch in these hard economic times goes down a treat with governments beseiged by voters to, on the one hand, reduce debt and deficits, and on the other be seen to be creating economic opportunity in the age of downsizing.

Casinos also serve another purpose. While taxes seem punitive, making money off of gamblers appears on the surface to be a win-win situation. The government gets the money it wants,while gamblers get the adrenaline rush they crave, and maybe some cash. The whole arrangement seems to be victimless – if you want to gamble, you pay the price.

For their part, gambling advocates envision Ontario as a Mecca for American gamblers chasing our low dollar, low crime, no tax casinos. They say we can have it both ways: a safe, low-crime Ontario in which islands of gambling fever suck in much-needed American dollars to prop up the provincial government treasury.

Gambling has been legal in Canada since 1969 (though the oldest casino is the gold rush-era Diamond Gerties in Dawson City, Yukon), but it wasn’t until the New Democrat government of Bob Rae that the idea of government-run or sanctioned permanent casinos became an option in Ontario.

The gambling consultant says the appeal of casinos is that they offer a sure-fire anchor to a local economy. He criticizes other developments like theme parks for being “too risky.” To make the most money, he says, casinos should avoid any pretensions to be slick, high-society affairs and instead go after the folks with “the family restaurant-style dress code.”

While the casino in Windsor is a lucrative success for the government – taking in a “win” of $500 million – local businesses have yet to report any of that money coming their way. Gambling experts say that isn’t about to change. With $400 million going directly to the government, and the rest covering expenses and the management fee paid to an American consortium running the casino, there will be little left for anyone else.

The Windsor casino is also drawing criticism for being a social parasite on Detroit, which supplies 80 per cent of the casino users. The influx of $1 million into Windsor means between 2,000 and 3,000 jobs are lost in Detroit, according to gambling expert William Thompson of the University of Nevada. Because of this, it is believed Detroit will soon set up a casino if voters say so.

A 1993 Coopers and Lybrand study commissioned by the government estimated Windsor’s win would be reduced by 60 per cent if Detroit were to open a casino.

That same study strangely found comfort in its findings that the average “pathological gambler” is male, under 30, non-Caucasian, unmarried and without a high school diploma.

It then goes on to say, “The typical US casino gaming patron earns thirty per cent more than the average of the US population, is between the ages of 40-64, is college educated and lives in a household of two or more members.” Just the kind of market that sends corporations into ecstasy.

Quebec example

The Quebec experience offers some valuable lessons for Ontario. Quebec’s three casinos were also looking to be a success until recently. The Quebec government and gambling advocates maintained the casinos (located in Montreal, Pointe-au-Pic and Ottawa’s sin-bin, Hull) were squeaky clean. Just like in Ontario, they remarked upon the impressive revenues – $1 million a day – and the huge influx of tourists. But closer scrutiny reveals the three casinos have not come without a cost.

Both Montreal and Pointe-au-Pic casinos have been criticized for preying on poor locals who spend the pittance out of their entertainment budgets on gambling. The casinos have also been involved in high-profile drug busts, money laundering scams and even murders committed by gambling addicts trying to extort money from relatives. At the Montreal casino, enterprising youth gangs targeted winners as they left the casino when it closed at three am. The robberies worked like this: A confidant would spot winners in the casino and then use a cellphone to tell accomplices waiting outside to mug the unsuspecting “lucky” ones still intoxicated by their good fortune.

All the rosy projections about casinos reviving the Ontario economy are based on several key assumptions: Americans will be the main users of the casinos, casinos in Ontario will not compete with each other or other sectors of the economy (restaurants, movie theatres, etc.), the social costs will be low and crime will not increase significantly, and most importantly, American casinos won’t lure away gamblers.

As for the gambling consultant, he doesn’t think the casinos slated to open later this year in Niagara Falls will drag the city down any farther. “Niagara Falls isn’t the nicest place now. The casino will finally give an economic reason to upgrade these places (hotels, motels and restaurants).”

And while the Niagara Falls casino will most certainly be popular, it will not be able to operate free of competition for long. Across the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls, New York, preparations are being made to open a casino by 1997.

Windsor will also face competition from the American side. Voters in the state of Michigan will be asked to vote on whether to allow casinos at the next state elections. Several groups, including a local Indian band, have been pushing for a casino to be located in downtown Detroit. Canadian casinos must also compete with river boats from Illinois and Indiana.

The government has reached a watershed in its gambling policy, leaving it with few choices. It can either allow unfettered growth in casinos as more and more communities scramble to find any means necessary to generate jobs and tax revenues, or it can recognize there is a limit to gambling as a solution to economic woes.

As the source says, “The government is in a quandry: they like the revenue but hate the way it is raised.”