CHARLOTTE – So much for being a world-class city.

I was in Charlotte last weekend to pick up the Little Conqueror from drama camp (it had a Harry Potter/Hogwarts theme, and of course he was sorted into Slytherin). While there, I happened to read a story about the recent wave of stadium and arena construction across the United States. It seems that cities from San Diego to New York are putting up new sports venues for their professional football, baseball, or basketball teams.

The juxtaposition was striking. Charlotte has (in)famously begun work on a brand-new arena for its Bobcats NBA franchise, even though voters said “no” to the idea in a previous referendum. The reasoning behind the Charlotte arena sounds a lot like that offered by sports boosters in the other cities, according to the story:

Behind the bleacher boom is the desire of owners to add corporate skyboxes, wide malls where everything from automobiles to kielbasa are sold, and sit-down restaurants where diners can pick apart a lobster while watching players swing bats or catch footballs. New stadiums also increase the value of a franchise, especially since attendance usually increases as media exposure of the new park increases public interest – even in mediocre teams.

So does that mean North Carolina’s largest municipality has, in fact, achieved that fabled dream of being a “world-class city”?

Nope. There appears to be a difference between what the Queen City did and how many of the other arena deals are coming together. The trend is for the teams themselves to shoulder more of the cost of the new facilities, rather than foisting it on the taxpayers of the local community or state. The New York Yankees, for example, first sought to have a new ballpark paid for entirely by the taxpayers – and then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani offered to do just that back in 1996, only to face significant opposition to the idea. A subsequent 50-50 arrangement also fell through. Now, George Steinbrenner has announced plans for the team to finance a new $800 million park, with the government role limited to infrastructure, parking, and adjacent facilities (still too much at $220 million, but still a small fraction of the original price tag).

In a sense, Charlotte can be seen as a leader here. Way back in the late 1980s, the community built the stadium for the Carolina Panthers with mostly private dollars in an arrangement resembling what the Yankees are about to do in New York. Unfortunately, since then fiscal discipline has deteriorated in Charlotte, even as it has apparently been making a partial comeback in other places around the country.

The new Bobcats arena in uptown Charlotte will reportedly cost $265 million. Taxpayers are slated to cover $170 million of that, while Bobcats owner Robert Johnson will chip in just $23 million. The team is supposed to absorb any cost overruns. Sure it will.

Let’s sum up, then: Charlotte has a higher-than-average tax burden, its high schools are disastrously ineffective, and it’s now officially more wasteful with sports subsidies than New York City is. Not even my son, newly schooled in the ways of wizardry, can cast a spell strong enough to make all this look attractive.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.