The post-Katrina resurgence of the Biloxi casino industry and the city’s efforts to strike a comfortable quality-of-life balance are the focus of a story in today’s USA Today.
The 660-word report, headlined “Casinos bounce back in Biloxi’s construction boom/Officials concerned about growth going unchecked,” appears on Page 2A and features a photograph of Mayor A.J. Holloway in front of the 112-foot neon guitar at Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.
USA Today, with print readership of 4.3 million, is the most widely read newspaper in the United States.
New Orleans-based staffer Rick Jervis was in Biloxi recently to compile the story, interviewing Holloway, Reviving the Renaissance Chairman Clark Griffith and others. The story also included a brief recap of the controversy surrounding the proposal to locate at gaming resort north of the beach in east Biloxi.
“The boom in construction,” Jervis wrote, “makes Biloxi one of the few Gulf Coast cities battered by the hurricane in 2005 that may actually be recovering too fast.”
To read the entire story, click here.
The USA Today coverage, incidentally, is merely the latest in a long line of national coverage that has put the Biloxi story before an audience of tens of millions.
To read about previous national press coverage, as reported in May 2006, click here.