Here:
Beijing Olympics officials approached the 2008 Games as an opportunity to host the world’s biggest sporting event, not to create infrastructure of permanent importance. Now Beijing is left with a post-Olympics landscape that better suits the taste of ruin porn aficionados than urban development officials. Its a story that should serve as a warning not only to London but future cities that have their sights set on investing billions into new infrastructure for a two-and-a-half week event.
I do wish people would be less free with that word “invest”, when what they actually mean is “spend”. But you can’t blame this particular guy, for our entire Keynes-soaked culture is saturated with such confusion. The modern Olympics are a gigantic exercise in digging huge Keynesian holes, running about in them, and then filling them in.
Ruin porn pictures follow.
I’m actually a tad more optimistic about London’s Olympic “infrastructure”. Our Olympic clutter will cost us many arms and many legs, for little immediate benefit or longer term benefit. And presumably, in the short run, our Olympic leftovers will suffer some disrepair and delapidation. But most of it is in a part of not-outer London that will be simply too valuable to be left to rot indefinitely. Also, our media will sneer too much if what now appears to be happening in China were to happen here. In China, media sneering is, I presume, less of a problem.
My guess is that the Dome is more of a guide to what will happen to London’s Olympic stuff. There was much faffing about in the immediate aftermath of the Millenium, but eventually, a meaningful use was found for it. Likewise, London Olympic remains will either be used or done away with and built over.
Meanwhile here are a couple more Olympic snaps I took recently. Both are of the Olympic rings now hanging from Tower Bridge. First, before they were swung down into place:
And second, after:
For further fun, you can enjoy a recent Chinese homage to Tower Bridge. It’s twice as good as the original, because it has twice the original number of towers!
Yeah. You can sorta see why they wouldn’t be using the Lisa Simpson gives B.J. graphic there.
The Tower Bridge rip-off article shows the Chinese do indeed have a sense of humour:
“The top floor of the construction boasts a coffee shop called Tower Bridge Coffee – promising ‘English’ style coffee.”
Wonder where they’re sourcing their Nescafe Instant, Catering with the special lumpy bits that float to the top.
I have to say, if you’re going to host the Olympics, hanging those rings from the Tower Bridge is a nice touch.
One of the few things I liked about Dubai was the two Chrysler Centers next to each other.
London is going to keep running the facilities, but as there really isn’t much public demand for watching handball or track cycling, the public will keep funding them for years, until one day the politicians have decided that they don’t have to keep up the “legacy” bullshit and then will be dropped like a stone.
The real white elephant is going to be the stadium. There probably won’t be any use for 3 years and even then, a football club still might not be interested because of the athletics track. But because we’ve signed up to do the 2017 Athletics, government will have to keep it in good condition for 5 years.
I’d level all of it but the aquatic cen
The stupidity of it is that two new large stadiums had been built in London in recent years – Emirates and Wembley. Then, due to the Olympics, another one. If a single “National Stadium” had been built both as a replacement for the old Wembley and to host the Olympics, it may have made more sense. But the rules of the IOC are so strict that to bid for the Olympics you have to build a new stadium right next to the athletes village and many of the other venues. Existing venues don’t cut it, generally.
The main stadium in Sydney does get a reasonable amount of use, but it probably only gets filled to capacity two or three times a year. (Rugby League Grand Final and State of Origin, and a Bledisloe Cup Rugby Test, or major one off events. It was the main venue for the last Rugby World Cup, and it worked for that). The Superdome gets used for basketball and as a concert venue. The aquatic centre gets use, sure, but Australians are bigger on aquatic events than British people are.
The velodrome and the equestrian centre, not so much.
I agree the white heffalump is the stadium. We’ve built a major capital “thingie” for like a month’s use. It’s insane. It is actually much the same as buying a nice new motor for a single trip and scrapping it when you get back home.
It’s really poorly thought out. Some thought ought to have been made to the ultimate use of the stadium before spade-one bit earth. Or maliciously because the negotiations (involving Tessa “Irritable” Jowell) with various football clubs stink. Compare and contrast with Manchester. OK that was a cosy/crony deal with Man City but it was a deal which was part of the plan from the start.
And don’t even get me started on that monstrance that is Wembley versus the Cardiff Millennium stadium.
Now the way I see it. A major
Please tell me those are photo-shopped.
They haven’t really done that have they?
Jings ma boab.
Beautiful pictures, Brian. The Navy destroyers really add to the spirit of friendly international competition.
The Great Sports/Arts Moneymaker
1/. There is a severe shortage of dedicated modern sports/arts facilities. Public money must be invested!
2/. The public should be encouraged to take part in sports/arts. Public money must be spent!
3/. There is concern about the condition the publics’ health/cultural deprivation. Strong measures are needed to encourage participation in sports/arts. Public money must be spent!
4/. Lack of take up of sports/arts facilities is putting them under threat of closure. Ways must be found to attract a wider range of user. Public money must be spent!
5/. Go to item 1/.
The principal reason the LA Games of 1984 made a profit was because almost all the venues were in preexisting facilities. The insistence on new venues is killing any chance of making money; if you fancy some non-ChiCom Olympic ruin porn, try this from Athens 2004…
Does anyone know when did they come up with the requirement for all-new facilities, and has any host city other than LA ever made a profit (or at least broken even)?
In modern times (since the games became a feast of absurity) the LA Games were very unusual Alisa – one of the bright things (along with radio deregulation, and the cut in the income tax from 70% to 28%) of the Reagan years (I know there were also terrible things in the Reagan years – before anyone points it out, the Supreme Court ordering “free” education for illegals, Congress ordering ERs in supposedly private hospitals to be open to all, the end of limits on Federal disablity programs…..).
Still back to the games.
Brian’s post is correct – spending as “investment” indeed.
And are the comments.
The only person I have heard (on the radio) speaking sense about the games was the historian David Starkey on BBC Radio Four’s “Any Questions” show.
His contempt (expressed in wonderfully theatrical terms) for “forced celebration” and the whole group-think of the ghastly event (as well as showing that it will do economic harm – not economic good) was true – and deeply entertaining.
Whatever you do, don’t put a link to the London Olympics website here!!
Our Atlanta Olympics broke even or made a small profit. We also allowed street vendors which offended the aristocrat’s sensiblities. And there were those pickup trucks. And we did have had a little bussing problem. After those Olympics a very large public dollar investment became a bigger requirement. Atlanta farmed out everything they could to sponsors, hence the lack of an economic sink hole, but also resulted in the dreaded commercialization of the Olympics across Atlanta (though not in the facilities themselves, where advertising was banned).
But our baseball team got a nice new stadium out of the deal. It justified the expense of our football stadium as well (which was basically given the go ahead after we won the Olympics, even though its role in the Olympics was secondary to not allowing our football team to move to another city). The athletes village figures prominently in the downtown skyline and was turned into dorms for a downtown university. I think the veladrome was taken down but it was located in a state park that got some nice facilities during the Olympics. That park’s operation was privatized in the last decade and I think its quite healthy.