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Casinos in cities should connect with their surroundings and can lend their enormous visitor pull to spur urban revival, Global Market Advisors partner Andrew Klebanow says in a thoughtful and timely paper, Casinos and the City, that he presented recently in Beijing. While downtown Macau (or “the peninsula”) is an archetype for successful integration of casinos into the cityscape – just count the number of pawn shops – Cotai has gone a different way.

One grave disappointment with Cotai remains the difficulty walking from one casino another. These big box resorts occupy huge swathes of land, and their footprints with limited entrances aren’t welcoming for pedestrian traffic. Shuttle buses proliferate to link casino resorts within the district. New resorts will create more opportunities for traveling by foot between casinos – Melco Crown’s Studio City will be next to Sands China’s Parisian, which will undoubtedly be connected to the Venetian/Plaza complex, which is linked by footbridge to Sands Cotai Central, just a short pop across the street from Melco Crown’s flagship City of Dreams – while the Wynn Cotai and SJM’s Palace will spread Cotai well off its central strip. The latter two resorts will be adjacent to stops on Macau’s long delayed light rail system, an enterprise for which Macau officials no longer dare project an opening date or construction cost but which nevertheless promises to change the travel dynamic in Cotai and beyond.

Casinos on Macau’s peninsula mix into the urban landscape, but creating interaction between the city and Cotai resorts is more challenging. (Photo credit: AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

The casinos developed in Cotai follow the trend set in North America in the latter 20^th century, Klebanow says. He dubs these behemoths “island casinos,” essentially one-stop shopping for the resort customer with gaming, hotel, restaurants, retail, entertainment, parking and more built in. While they may support the host community in terms of tax revenue and job creation, they are physically apart from it, often incorporating buffer zones and limited access points to enhance their isolation.

Klebanow, a long time US gaming executive turned consultant, cites Galaxy Macau as an example of an island casino. Before last month’s Phase 2 opening, Galaxy had just three main entrances, two of them facing away from the neighboring cityscape. A shame, too, Klebanow notes, because the adjacent urban area is Old Taipa Village, an enclave that includes renowned restaurants, famed souvenir sweets sellers and museums. But getting from Galaxy to Old Taipa Village requires crossing a six lane road that doesn’t have a traffic light within 100 meters of the main village entrance.

A more egregious example of failure to integrate with the surrounding area features Atlantic City’s boardwalk casinos. Their access points focus on the boardwalk, meaning they literally show their backs to the city they were ostensibly built to save. Issues beyond design can also hamper integration. The casino in Detroit’s landmark Greektown district, adapted from an existing building rather than a purpose-built gaming facility, expected to use the surrounding area to fill its gaps through marketing relationships with local businesses. However, Michigan’s requirement for strict background checks on all vendors engaged with casino scared off many putative partners. In Cleveland, adaptive reuse of the historic Higbee Department Store with no lodging and limited dining succeeded in part because the owners were able to forge marketing agreements with local businesses. In addition to paring renovation costs – no need to add rooms or restaurants – it created allies for developers Dan Gilbert and Caesars Entertainment and support for the project in local and state government.

Recent developments suggest all may not be lost for Cotai as an urban casino setting. Macau’s government has completed an overpass across the road to Old Taipa Village and moving walkways that deliver people to the heart of quaintness. Galaxy’s expansion includes Broadway Macau, designed to bring the flavors of Macau to Cotai, utilizing local vendors in an open, street setting. Perhaps, not surprisingly, this ground level activity spills out to the entire periphery of property. Ground level windows into shops, restaurants and even Broadway’s boutique casino help activate the streetscape, seemingly thriving despite the bridge link to Galaxy. The evidence suggests customers want Cotai to be an urban experience, integrated with the best of Macau. We’ll see if anyone gets the message.

Hong Kong On Air author Muhammad Cohen is Editor At Large for Inside Asian Gaming. Follow him on Twitter @Muhammad Cohen.