Games Monitor

It is instructive to compare the assessment of the UEL research above and the COHRE report when describing the impact of the Olympic Games upon the housing market in Barcelona.

The UEL research states: (From pages 19-20)

"As with any kind of regeneration project, the Games can contribute to an amplification of socio-economic differences, producing new spatial distributions of wealth and well-being and gentrification effects which sometimes polarise local populations in regenerating areas.

For instance, Barcelona is understood to be amongst the most successful cities in terms of legacy. As part of its successful development of its image and infrastructure towards becoming a key European hub – and a renewed centre for global tourism and culture, the city has also seen (as a consequence) massive house price and rental inflation (131% between 1987-1992), and the emergence of a large population of wealthy international resident/visitors and property investors benefiting from long term infrastructure investments more directly than some local populations, whose access to housing and jobs may not have significantly improved." (My italics)

The COHRE report states:(From Page 112)

"The staging of the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games had a negative impact on the accessibility and affordability of housing. Between 1986 and 1992 (the period from the Olympic candidature to the staging of the Games) the price of housing increased, the availability of rental accommodation was reduced, the construction of public housing decreased, and there were no public housing policies directed at the groups most in need of assistance. Many people in Barcelona were displaced, with over 600 families evicted from areas designated as Olympic sites or because of associated Olympic redevelopment. A reported 240 percent rise in new house prices between the 1986 announcement of the election of Barcelona as a Host City and the 1992 actual event created a more expensive housing environment that led to further secondary displacements.

The preparation and celebration of the Olympic Games took place in the context of minimal state intervention in the area of housing. The Olympic Games served to reinforce and exacerbate the consequences of the privatisation of housing. In Barcelona, the organisation and celebration of the Olympic Games accentuated the decline in housing affordability, demonstrated by strong increases in the prices of housing for rent and for sale (from 1986 to 1993 the cumulative increase was 139 percent for sale prices and nearly 145 percent for rentals), and a drastic decrease in the availability of public housing (from 1986 to 1992 there was a cumulative decrease of 75.92 percent)."

I consider that the viewpoint of the researchers at UEL is not concerned with the predicament of those poor who experience the negative housing impacts of the Olympic Games whereas the COHRE researchers are sufficiently concerned to look at those negative impacts in some detail. I think the difference is critical and significantly diminishes the value of all of the UEL research.