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New sport stadia are always contentious projects but in small cities, the stakes may be proportionally higher. This study analyses the turbulence generated by a stadium's approval and financing in Dunedin, New Zealand (2004-2017).It analyses: 1) the city's deferment of advice and fundraising to a charitable trust, 2) the financing apparatus that used council-owned companies (COCs) to obfuscate costs, and 3) the resultant consequences including legal proceedings, COC reforms and company failures. It is suggested that the porousness of governance arrangements invited scrutiny of the links between the city and its COCs, and by extension induced a temporary halt to the softening public-private boundary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In conjunction with the extensive growth of new media technologies, stadium debates and competing claims on civic resources are being increasingly played out in cyberspace. Using case material from Dunedin, New Zealand, we critically examine the deployment of popular video sharing websites like YouTube that allow dominant interest groups to articulate their 'unfiltered' ideological positions. We suggest that stadium proponents (in the private and public sectors) are utilizing new media technologies (e.g., websites, blogs, etc.) as part of highly orchestrated public-relations campaigns that are designed to create the impression of popular support and optimistic momentum for development. In bypassing traditional media and skirting oppositional viewpoints, we argue that these types of promotional strategies have profound implications for local democratic politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the perspective of city officials, proposals to build new stadiums are tenuous because of the dual local government imperatives of having to be both visionary (i.e., entrepreneurial) and conservative (i.e., fiscally responsible and publicly accountable). Based on case data in Dunedin, New Zealand, we investigate two related dilemmas that emanate from that city's stadium deliberation process. The first is with regards to the dichotomy between politicians and bureaucrats, and the degree to which deliberations on a new stadium should be politically or technocratically driven. The second concerns the extent to which local authorities favour independence or accountability in gathering information. Here we suggest that deference and delegation to an 'independent' body became tantamount to procrastinating - that is a case of holding the process up in order to progress it. Our analysis demonstrates that such dilemmas demand immediate responses that, while seemingly benign in the short term, alter the balance between a city's entrepreneurial outlook and its view towards citizen responsiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]