"Isn't Lancaster Different?"

Dr. Sanders (of the Brookings Report) commented on the Convention Center a few years ago.

At the presentation at Liberty Place, he showed how every CC had failed woefully below promised expectations. Mayor Smithgall asked "Isn't Lancaster different?" (Implying that Lancaster was so different that the CC would succeed here.)

Dr. Sanders wryly noted that "every community thinks it's different" and that it would succeed in spite of the trends. Then he went on to show the inadequacies of the figures promised to Lancaster.

There was an element of arrogance that Lancaster was so charming and perfect that the CC would succeed in spite of trends.

I have two questions:

1. Did the proponents (pushing the project ) really presume it would succeed?

2. Do they still think it will meet what they promised?

Or was the reality known to them from the beginning and their greed push it through?