The World’s Fair.
One quickly imagines the art deco poster of the touchstone 1939 World’s Fair in New York. Heck, that poster hangs in my home office. Or maybe we recall the fact that Montreal named a professional baseball team after the fact that they had the World Expo in 1967.
An American delegation from Bloomington, just south of Minneapolis, made its bid for the 2023 World Expo this year. The other finalists included Argentina and Poland.
The proposed site was a 59-acre farm, the last of its kind in Bloomington.It looked pretty good. After all, we’re Minnesota! It’s not like we have a long, crippling statewide complex over finishing second over and over and over again.
So, yeah.
Last week, international officials voted Buenos Aires, Argentina as the successful site of the 2023 World’s Expo in a final vote against Poland. Ultimately, the Minnesota bid failed to advance out of the first round.
Perhaps it was Minnesota’s proposed theme (healthy food!) which may have been more credible coming from a less obese country. Perhaps there lingered sincere concern whether or not the United States would still exist in 2023. After all, we could be a sleepy Canadian province or the set of “The Road” by then, never a good look for an international function.
To me, that seems unfair. After all, the 1997 movie “Starship Troopers” clearly explains that Buenos Aires is destroyed by alien bugs in the future.
In any event, here’s what the 2023 World’s Expo *won’t* have:
- People wearing Vikings jerseys with shorts
- Surly on tap
- Joe Mauer’s extended family dropping a lot of money on bingo
- All you can eat hotdish
- 15-19 early stage Minnesota gubernatorial candidates each being followed by a college student carrying a sign with their name on it
- Exhibitions of Duck, Duck, Grey Duck
- Embridge swag
- Passive Aggressive Parade of Nations, or at the least the ones who bother to show up
- Artificial intelligence that calls it “pop” and not “soda”
- Commercially viable flying cars
Aside from the “neat” factor, the exposure, and revenue it would bring to the area, I am personally happy that Bloomington lost the bid, for entirely selfish reasons. You see, I work directly to the north of the farm, and it would make commuting a nightmare! 150k people per day! for THREE MONTHS!!!
The City of Bloomington recently approved the purchase of the land for $32M in preparation for the fair; I wonder if cash has traded hands already!
I am sure there will be luxury condo units and other amenities springing up within the next three years!
In any case, developers will swoop in, and in five years, no more sheep grazing the land.
AND IT IS GOOSE!!!