It´s only a Game
July 29, 2016 5:09 AM Subscribe
100 Stories, 100 Removals, 100 Houses Destroyed by the 2016 Olympic Games.
A difficult legacy to hide: psychological and physical violence, social relations ripped apart, residents in debt and under control of the militias of the West Zone of Rio.
Animations
A difficult legacy to hide: psychological and physical violence, social relations ripped apart, residents in debt and under control of the militias of the West Zone of Rio.
Animations
I think part of the issue is that the IOC is hosting the games in places that don't have enough pre-existing infrastructure to support the influx of people without tearing out parts of the city.
I live in Los Angeles and everyone here is clamouring to host the 2024 games. The last time LA played host, we got desperately needed upgrades to infrastructure that was already in place, which was both cost effective and a boon to the city, but only possible because we're already used to crowded space and having too many people than we know what to do with.
After the 1932 LA games, during the depression, the IOC reported $1Mil in profit.
In 1984, LA hosted again (just after the failed, financial wreck of the 1976 Summer Games and during a time of extremely low Olympic interest) and managed to rack up $200Mil in profit.
I have to acknowledge that LA is unique because we're a city of entertainment goons, with large scale events happening just about every other month, AND we're a major travel destination, AND the greater LA region can fit most major cities inside of it's borders at the same time.
This combo of industry, size, and tourism does make our city weirdly well suited to host large scale international events.
But we also didn't re-invent the wheel to host them.
Immense planning and care went into the sustainable aspect of hosting such a large scale event.
Ex: Instead of building brand spanking new dorms for the athletes, we borrowed empty summer dorms from USC, UCLA, and UCSB.
Ex: We renovated our stadium instead of building a new one.
Ex: We spread the locations of events out, sometimes making them up to 100 miles apart, and then used the funding and sponsorship money that we'd raised to improve our existing transit program, a move that would help the city continue to make money in the future.
I don't think the issue is that people don't *want* to host the games.
The issue is that the people in charge of hosting the games aren't willing to repurpose/reuse what they've got for reasons of national pride (#SochiProblems) or they're already dealing with extreme political turmoil and unsafe living conditions, making it pretty damn tough to focus on and plan an event that requires billions of dollars to pull off.
posted by Deeleybopper at 7:58 AM on July 29, 2016 [3 favorites]
I live in Los Angeles and everyone here is clamouring to host the 2024 games. The last time LA played host, we got desperately needed upgrades to infrastructure that was already in place, which was both cost effective and a boon to the city, but only possible because we're already used to crowded space and having too many people than we know what to do with.
After the 1932 LA games, during the depression, the IOC reported $1Mil in profit.
In 1984, LA hosted again (just after the failed, financial wreck of the 1976 Summer Games and during a time of extremely low Olympic interest) and managed to rack up $200Mil in profit.
I have to acknowledge that LA is unique because we're a city of entertainment goons, with large scale events happening just about every other month, AND we're a major travel destination, AND the greater LA region can fit most major cities inside of it's borders at the same time.
This combo of industry, size, and tourism does make our city weirdly well suited to host large scale international events.
But we also didn't re-invent the wheel to host them.
Immense planning and care went into the sustainable aspect of hosting such a large scale event.
Ex: Instead of building brand spanking new dorms for the athletes, we borrowed empty summer dorms from USC, UCLA, and UCSB.
Ex: We renovated our stadium instead of building a new one.
Ex: We spread the locations of events out, sometimes making them up to 100 miles apart, and then used the funding and sponsorship money that we'd raised to improve our existing transit program, a move that would help the city continue to make money in the future.
I don't think the issue is that people don't *want* to host the games.
The issue is that the people in charge of hosting the games aren't willing to repurpose/reuse what they've got for reasons of national pride (#SochiProblems) or they're already dealing with extreme political turmoil and unsafe living conditions, making it pretty damn tough to focus on and plan an event that requires billions of dollars to pull off.
posted by Deeleybopper at 7:58 AM on July 29, 2016 [3 favorites]
(total derail) Adamvasco: you want ’ [Right single quotation] not ´ [Acute accent] if you’re going to use a Unicode character for the apostrophe instead of '.
posted by pharm at 12:14 PM on July 29, 2016
posted by pharm at 12:14 PM on July 29, 2016
How a chance to remake the city for ordinary Brazilians ended up lining the pockets of the rich instead. The Broken Promise of the Rio Olympics.
posted by adamvasco at 8:38 AM on August 1, 2016
posted by adamvasco at 8:38 AM on August 1, 2016
The Machine Behind the Scenes: Get to Know the International Olympic Committee
posted by adamvasco at 6:50 AM on August 18, 2016
posted by adamvasco at 6:50 AM on August 18, 2016
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Drugs scandals and Rio’s haphazard preparations have dominated the headlines but the most worrying sign for Thomas Bach and co has barely been reported – does anyone really want to host the Games any more?
posted by adamvasco at 6:56 AM on July 29, 2016 [4 favorites]