Planning mega-event legacies: uncomfortable knowledge for host cities

The rhetoric employed when cities bid for the right to host mega-events like the Olympic Games suggests that benefits will include improved infrastructure, investment in city infrastructure, and regeneration of neglected urban areas. However, the legacy of mega-events has historically been mixed; while some cities have been recognized for their development efforts, many others have been vilified for their subsequent actions, or lack thereof. The term legacy itself is, however, problematic; it presents a one-sided view of positive effects, without adequate consideration of downside risk in bidding. This research draws on interviews from people involved in six different mega-events and illustrates the challenges of addressing legacy with a variety of examples, including a detailed look at the London 2012 Olympic Games’ legacy negotiations regarding the use of the Olympic Stadium to gain insight into how legacy opportunities are developed. Drawing on the concept of uncomfortable knowledge, the dispute over the legacy use of the Olympic Stadium is used to examine the mixed perspectives of the different parties involved in decisions over mega-event legacies. We conclude by suggesting that unacknowledged interests, which remain constructively ambiguous during the bidding phase, create the opportunity for uncomfortable knowledge to arise in the planning process. The use of uncomfortable knowledge as a theoretical lens provides a useful construct to focus on the boundaries and limitations of knowledge in planning mega-events.     

TRANSPORT LEGACY OF THE OLYMPIC GAMES, 1992–2012

Legacy planning in preparation for the Olympic Games has significantly grown in importance for host cities and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) because of wasteful investments for some previous Games. Since the late 1990s, the IOC has actively sought to prevent such overspending through a Transfer of Knowledge program, in which valuable lessons are passed from one host city to the next. This paper analyzes the transport legacies of the Olympic Games, using original archive material and interviews with key decision‐makers in five cities. While previous research into the effects of the Olympic Games on host cities suggests that infrastructural legacies are place‐specific, the main argument of this paper is that the transport legacies of the Olympic Games are much more uniform across the host cities. Even though host cities’ transport systems were intrinsically different pre‐Olympics, the author finds that similar features of Olympic transport systems, developed through the Transfer of Knowledge program, produced similar legacies. In explaining the creation of transport legacies through Olympics‐motivated drivers, the author suggests the Olympics might trigger similar transport developments in future host cities. Therefore, city planners can use Olympic transport features as powerful catalysts to accelerate their urban and transport plans.     

Olympics and Urban Legacy in Sydney: Urban Transformations and Real Estate a Decade after the Games

The Olympic Games (OG) are an opportunity for cities to display themselves on the world stage. Cities from developed and developing countries present themselves to hold the Games, always with a double intention: to promote itself in the global arena and use this opportunity to stimulate urban changes. However, there are very few studies that analyze the urban legacy of the OG for the host cities, probably because it takes years for an urban legacy to become established, and when the time is right to analyze this legacy other OG are on the agenda. The aim of this paper is to analyze the urban legacy left by the 2000 OG in Sydney. Sydney has been chosen for this analysis because, as there have been no other major development projects for the Homebush Bay region since the 2000 OG, the impact of the Games can be measured, specifically regarding physical transformations, discussing what their real urban legacy is.     

Transport legacy of mega-events and the redistribution of accessibility to urban destinations

Local governments increasingly justify the hosting of mega-events because of their legacy value, assuming that all local residents benefit from those events. Yet, little attention has been paid to the distributive question of who benefits from the transport legacy left by those events. This paper reflects on the delimitation of transport legacies and its social impacts in terms of how such developments can reshape urban accessibility to opportunities. It analyses the transformation in the transport system of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in preparation for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games. That transformation involved substantial expansion in public transport infrastructure, followed by cuts in service levels and a reorganization of many bus lines to streamline the transport system. The paper examines whether those recent changes have increased the number of people from different income levels who could access Olympic sports venues and healthcare facilities by public transport within 15, 30, 60 and 90 min. The analysis uses a before-and-after comparison of Rio's transport network (2014–2017) and a quasi-counterfactual scenario to separate the effects of newly added infrastructure from the reorganization and cuts of transport services. The results show that the infrastructure expansion alone would have increased the number of people who could access the Olympic sports venues, but it would have only marginally improved people's access to healthcare facilities. Nonetheless, the findings indicate that the streamlined bus system have offset the benefits of infrastructure investments in a way that particularly penalizes the poor. The analysis of both the implemented changes to the public transport network and the counterfactual scenario show that the accessibility benefits from the recent cycle of investments and disinvestments in Rio generally accrued to middle- and higher-income groups, reinforcing existing patterns of urban inequality.     

大拆迁下旧址遗存的新生

随着中国后工业化时代的临近,越来越多的有价值或有意思的建筑旧址遗存被遗弃。城市需要可以托付记忆物件,市民需要可以怀旧的场所,开发商需要创造新商机的机会,拆还是不拆？本文重在探讨旧址遗存新生的意义及方法,为我国已迈入或即将迈入后工业化时代的城市提供参考。     

新自由主义管治下的后奥运规划与开发：以悉尼奥林匹克公园为例

奥运会给主办城市留下的最大物质遗产是奥运基础设施和场馆。后奥运研究文献大多集中在设施和场馆的运营和管理上,而对以它们为基础的后奥运城市开发及其规划则重视不够。撰写此文的目的是为了增加有关后奥运规划和开发的研究成果。我们的方法是案例研究,以悉尼奥林匹克公园为例,分析2000年奥运会之后悉尼所在的新南威尔士州政府如何在新自由主义城市管治理念下继续规划和开发奥林匹克公园。我们的结论是：尽管政府投入巨资修建奥运设施有悖于纯粹新自由主义管治理念,可以看作是新自由主义面对全球化趋势的妥协,但是在后奥运规划和开发上,新自由主义管治所倡导的小政府、公私伙伴关系和政府从土地等资产盈利等却有利于使奥运设施遗产价值最大化。我们希望此文对中国主要城市的有关讨论作出贡献。     

Book Reviews

‘Mega‐events’, such as the Olympic Games, have emerged as an important tool of urban and regional renewal through their ability to justify redevelopment and enhancement, attract inward investment, promote tourism and create new images for host cities. This paper complements previous research into the urban effects of the Summer Games by focusing on the infrastructural legacy of hosting the Winter Games, 1924–2002. The discussion concentrates upon the growing intensity of the intra‐urban competition to host the event and identifies four phases in the changing infrastructural implications of staging the Games. As a component of urban and regional policy, the Winter Olympics present both major risks and clear opportunities for the effective transformation of host centres.     

伦敦2012奥林匹克公园总体规划及赛后利用

21世纪初,下利亚山符曾经基础设施薄弱,破旧而不利于生活。2012年伦敦奥运会及残奥会场地建设是实现东伦敦地区大片废弃土地转型利用的第一步,并使这里有机会成为一个示范性的可持续发展环境。规划通过充分利用本地区的河流资源构建绿色廊道,修复破旧的城市肌理,同时还会在赛后留下可持续新社区,而奥运公园也将成为一个多世纪以来欧洲最大的公园之一。公园建设考虑到了环境、经济和社会的可持续发展,赛时及赛后规划紧密结合,同时进行,公园的遗产总规划框架是区域再生和进一步发展的基础。未来的奥林匹克区将转变成一个城市新区。     

How to Bid Better for the Olympics: A Participatory Mega-Event Planning Strategy for Local Legacies

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Several cities have canceled their Olympic bids in recent years because of local protests and referenda. Bidding cities now face a new political reality as they debate whether a bid is in the best interests of local stakeholders. We present a case study of Boston's (MA) ultimately unsuccessful bid to be the U.S. city selected to host the 2024 Olympic Games. Boston 2024, a nonprofit organization, prepared 2 sequential bids. We ask whether, how, and why Boston 2024 changed its planning approach from the 1st to the 2nd bid to respond to significant protests over its failure to meaningfully involve stakeholders, identify specific legacies, and provide accurate cost details. Our findings are limited by our focus on a single case, the small number of interviewees, and the constraints of ethnographic work. Boston 2024 shifted from an elite-driven process to a more inclusive one, from making generic claims about the impact of hosting the Games to describing local legacies, and from opaque budgets to transparent ones. Boston 2024 did not involve city planners in meaningful ways or engage fully with opponents. These changes were thus not sufficient to overcome substantial local distrust and opposition.

Takeaway for practice: Cities considering mega-event bids should encourage a fully participatory planning process that provides genuine local legacies and is transparent about costs and who will bear overruns. City planners would contribute significantly to bid planning that meets these objectives. Cities should also pressure Olympic organizations to make supportive changes in their selection requirements.     

伦敦奥运遗产

伦敦是第一个第三次举办奥运会的城市,其传统是率先考虑每个人的参与性。全球建筑专家Populous事务所发展了一个＂拥抱临时＂的新理论,挑战永恒建筑的概念,事务所对奥林匹克体育场的设计和比赛临时设施的介入保证了所有建筑使用均能适合奥运会的目的,其结果是有史以来能够在赛后转化成更小场地的环境可持续的奥林匹克体育场的成功建造。许多其他的奥运场馆都是临时设施,为在伦敦著名地标中演绎体育比赛提供了灵活性,同时保证了一个可持续而不会为城市带来巨大负担的奥运遗产。     

India's new globalization strategy and its consequences for urban development: the impact of the 2010 Commonwealth Games on Delhi's transport system

Developing nations increasingly seek mega-events in the pursuit of globalization. India has recently renewed such aspirations by hosting the XIX Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2010. The purpose of the paper is to assess Delhi's urban transport development through a sporting mega-event as a globalization strategy for a developing country. Therefore, the authors comparatively analyse the transport plans pre-bid (2003) and transport legacies (2013). The authors argue that the alignment of the mega-event needs with Delhi's urban master plan was partially fulfilled as many infrastructural projects were catalysed. However, the Games also compelled the city to invest in developments that were required for the successful delivery of the Games. This paper contributes to the discussion on how mega-events influence urban planning and points out significant challenges and opportunities developing cities face when preparing for a sporting mega-event.     

东伦敦城市更新背景下的伦敦2012奥林匹克公园

以东伦敦长达50年的城市更新规划为研究背景,针对伦敦2012年奥林匹克公园设计．从绿色基础设施的角度加以探讨并分析其对于整个城市发展的巨大作用。从时间维度上看,伦敦市政府强调了奥运会后遗产规划,将奥运场地远期发展纳入了始于1980年代的泰晤士河口城市更新计划中。从空间维度上看,奥林匹克公园作为重要的城市绿地,将成为东伦敦绿网、利亚区域公园、以及泰晤士河口绿地系统的重要节点,提升整个绿色基础设施的功能,从而实现可持续发展。     

Futurescapes of urban regeneration: ten years of design for the unfolding urban legacy of London’s Olympic Games, 2008–2018

ABSTRACT

Much of the literature on the urban legacy of the 2012 Olympics Games emerging in recent years has emphasized the form that development has taken and the ways in which this aligns (or not) with specific promises made in terms of regeneration before the Games. Though plenty of discussion of planning procedure has occurred in this context, less emphasis has been placed on how the process, rather than the products, of urban change has been envisioned through legacy planning and urban design, and the significance of this for regeneration. Given that London’s much-heralded ‘regeneration legacy’ was, from the early days of the Olympic bid, portrayed as a long-term process aimed at addressing historical issues of socio-economic disparity in East London, and that planning and urban design would play key roles in anticipating it, this contribution to the literature is timely. The paper focuses on the period from 2008 to 2018, beginning with the launch of the what was called the Legacy Masterplan Framework. Drawing on empirical analysis of documents describing the main stages of legacy planning and design between these years, it then examines how regeneration as a ‘futurescape’ encompassing numerous aspects of timing and temporality has been anticipated, planned and evolved.     

Aquatics Centre,London 2012 Olympic and Paralympics Games

The Aquatics Centre is a centrepiece of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Already now before the opening of the Games it is regarded as an iconic legacy building. The building comprises a 50 m competition pool and 25 m dive pool under the wave‐form roof of the main pool hall. A 50 m training pool is situated beneath the Olympic Park entrance plaza structure which is built integrally with the rest of the building. The engineering strategy has been developed around two basic configurations; the Games mode and Legacy Mode. In the Games mode the facility has a maximum gross spectator capacity of 17 500 for use for the London 2012 Games as well as housing facilities for the running of these events. In that mode temporary stands to the east and west of the competition and diving pools will seat approx. 15 000 spectators. In the legacy mode the building temporary seating will be dismantled and the building will be a permanent pool facility for the local community as well as national and international swimming events beyond the Games. Each pool tank is provided with a combination of floating floors and movable sub‐division boom bulkheads to allow multiple legacy and community use. Schwimm‐Arena der Olympischen und der Paralympischen Spiele London 2012 Die Schwimm‐Arena ist eines der Hauptgebäude der Olympischen wie auch der Paralympischen Spiele in London 2012. Schon vor Beginn der Spiele wurde es zu einer baulichen Ikone. Unter einem wellenförmigen Dach befinden sich ein 50‐m‐Schwimmbecken sowie ein 25‐m‐Becken mit Sprungtürmen. Das 50‐m‐Aufwärmbecken liegt unter einem der Eingänge zum Olympia Park, der so genannten Plaza. Die ingenieurtechnischen Planungen erfolgten gemäß den unterschiedlichen Anforderungen der “Games Mode” und der “Legacy Mode” nach den Spielen. Während der Spiele bestehen Tribünenplätze für 17 500 Zuschauer sowie alle damit verbundenen sonstigen räumlichen Anforderungen. Die westlich und östlich der Becken gelegenen temporären Tribünen nehmen 15 000 Zuschauer auf. Für die “Legacy Mode” werden diese wieder abgebaut und die Schwimmhalle wird dann von der breiten Öffentlichkeit und für nationale wie internationale Schwimmwettbewerben genutzt. Alle Schwimmbecken verfügen über höhenverstellbare Böden und Unterteilungen.     

Spatial scale,time and process in mega-events: The complexity of host community perspectives on neighbourhood change

A focus on the ‘mega’ aspect of hallmark events can divert attention from the micro – those local communities who are most impacted by the event. Similarly, attention to the ‘event’ aspect underplays the long process of bidding and preparation before any putative legacy of urban transformation for local people. This paper uses qualitative data to unpack the complex and multi-layered views of local residents, living in a deprived neighbourhood beside the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games site in Scotland. They reflect on five years of intensive urban regeneration, evaluate the experience of ‘lockdown’ at Games time, and consider their hopes and fears for the future of the community. Interviewing a mixture of lifelong, established, new and returning residents, we found considerable common ground across the different groups in terms of hopes for a new, mixed community in the area. However, findings also highlight concerns around urban governance practices and the limitations of a market-led approach to regeneration.     

Gendering the right to housing in the city: Homeless female lone parents in post-Olympics,austerity East London

This paper assesses how gender, housing, austerity and the right to the city inter-relate with reference to female lone parents from East London, the site of the 2012 Olympic Games. In so doing, the paper draws upon qualitative research undertaken with lone parent mothers living in temporary accommodation. The women's housing experiences are embedded within a deepening of neoliberal welfare cutbacks and restructuring under what Peck (2012) has called ‘austerity urbanism’. Although the mother's lives are based in East London where they have extended family and where many of them grew up, they have either been moved, or face the prospect of being moved, out of the area and even beyond the city limits into suburban South East England. Rather than basking in the much trumpeted 2012 Games regeneration ‘legacy’, these women's right to live in East London, close to their support networks, is being eroded.     

The Power of the Image

Designers have long used fantastical imagery as part of an urban regeneration process. Here, Louis Rice examines the legacy of Foreign Office Architects' seminal image for the 2005 winning bid for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A City at Play: Rio de Janeiro on the Eve of the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games

What will be the outcome of the large-scale construction programmes and under-delivered promises undertaken in preparation for the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games? Ana Luiza Nobre , Associate Professor of Architectural History at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and Head of Research and Education at the Instituto Moreira Salles, gazes into her crystal ball and asks what the ongoing legacy of Rio 2016 might be.     

RESCALING AMBITIONS: WATERFRONT GOVERNANCE AND TORONTO'S 2015 PAN AMERICAN GAMES

Toronto is a rare global city because negotiating public land ownership remains a defining feature of the city's urban politics. The awarding of the 2015 Pan American Games to Toronto is a prime occasion to witness how fragmented governance can limit the ambition and enthusiasm of a sporting mega‐event. Historically, Toronto has not been known for its ability to host large‐scale sporting events but it has recently used a series of failed Olympic bids and smaller sporting events to trigger piecemeal “legacy” development. In this article we argue that the awarding of the Pan American Games to Toronto was predicated on a process that removed local politics from the bidding process. Focusing on the development of the athletes’ village in the West Don Lands and incorporating a number of interviews with key stakeholders across Toronto, this research illustrates that the heavy involvement and investment of the Province of Ontario in the Pan American spectacle forces us to ask: Whose waterfront? Whose games?     

面向2010年广州亚运会的城市规划与研究综述

<正>国内外经验表明,大型体育赛事与城市规划及实施的关系越来越密切。将大型体育赛事与城市规划紧密结合起来,不仅能在城市整体发展框架下合理满足赛事的超常规需求,而且可以最大化赛事的"催化剂"效应,推动城市规划的实施和城市战略目标的实现。如首尔1988年奥运会大部分场馆设施选址于汉江南岸,主要原因是为了实施之前制定的南部新城发展计划,广岛1994年亚运会主会场选址于城区西北的山地地区,是为了实施城市总体规划制定的西风新都发展计划,促进多中心城