Interesting quote from JK's wikipedia link on the St. Louis arch:
"The project did not provide 5,000 jobs as expected—as of June 1964, workers numbered fewer than 100. The project did, however, incite other riverfront restoration efforts, totaling $150 million. Building projects included a 55,000-seat sports stadium, a 400-unit motel, a 24-story hotel, four parking garages, and an apartment complex.[16] The idea of a Disneyland amusement park that included "synthetic riverboat attractions" was considered but later deserted.[62][63] The developers hoped to use the arch as a commercial catalyst, attracting visitors who would use their services.[16] One estimate found that since the 1960s, the arch has incited almost $503,000,000 worth of construction.[64]"
The arch was certainly a catalyst for the riverfront revival that has taken place in St. Louis, and it could be argued the resulting development has saved the downtown area from turning into a ghost town.
At Chambers, I'm not sure what other uses they could have found for the land in the shape it was in. Much like the Harborside project in Chicago, a golf course was probably one of a few solutions that would work.
That being said, I'm still not sure the scope of the project that came about was justified. Time will tell. I have no idea how much of the $21 million was necessary just to make the land usable, or if the bulk of the costs were the result of the type of course they tried to build.
Garland makes a good point about the public park nature of Chambers. I think that would have existed if they'd built a course without the aspirations of hosting a major, one designed to be sustainable on a smaller budget.
After my earlier posts today I went back and read a good number of the comments from the beginning of this thread. While realizing we were rehashing a lot of the same arguments made last year, I did find one gem that stood out. Someone made the comment that the Chambers project was based on the Bethpage model. Other than the fact that both complexes were intended to be municipal courses, I don't see how the similarities of the end result at Chambers and what exists at Bethpage run that deep.