The Spectacular Construction of an Olympic Metropolis
Anne-Marie Broudehoux
University of Quebec, Montreal

ABSTRACT: This article presents a critical review of Beijing’s Olympic redevelopment, and of the social, economic, and political impacts of hosting mega events as a means of urban image construction. Through an analysis of Olympic projects, city marketing initiatives, and their impact on the city’s material and cultural landscape, this article postulates that Beijing’s spatial restructuring and image construction program played an important role in exacerbating the profound inequalities that have come to epitomize China’s transition to capitalism within an autocratic political system. Acting as a developmental engine legitimating large-scale urban transformations, the Olympics have helped concentrate economic and political power in the hands of a coalition of government leaders and private investors and allowed their interests to dominate the planning agenda. Beijing’s spectacular Olympic preparations have in many ways acted as a propaganda tool and an instrument of pacification to divert popular attention from the shortcomings of China’s rapid economic transformation, accompanied by rampant land speculation, corruption, and uneven development.

The raid on public funds to persuade West Ham and Tottenham football clubs to stay in their home territories has escalated to £57million with Haringey Council matching Bojo's offer of £8.5million with another £8.5million in relief for planning costs. This has drawn criticism from Spurs' courtroom allies, Leyton Orient, whose Chairman, Barry Hearn, described the offer as a 'bung'.

The Pudding Mill White Elephant just won't lie down. CoeLtd is still hoping to bring the 2017 IAAF World Athletics Championships to London. But it all depends on there being an available stadium. After all it's hard to hold an Athletics Championships without one. LoCoe has his own IAAF ambitions with the next milestone in 2015 when he hopes to succeed to the top job. The loss of a stadium could prove terminal to those ambitions.

A report on the impacts of the Olympic Games and Paralympics on host cities

Dr Mary Smith
London East Research Institute Working Papers
December 2008

There'd've been more than a little hype about the 2010 Winter Olympics contributing to maintaining Vancouver's hallowed status not just as a 'world class city' but as the world's most 'liveable'? Whilst there's no specific mention of any Olympics effect, it's been downgraded according to The Economist.

“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails and where any one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”
Frederick Douglas, Speech on the 24th anniversary of emancipation, Washington , DC, 1886

A local resident is interviewed by a foreign correspondent while rioting is taking place around the Pembury Estate in Hackney, East London.




At present Sheldon Thomas runs his own organization The Helping Hand Trust which works directly with gang members especially around extreme teenage violence giving intensive support, mentoring and gangs mediation...

Dave Hill's been tweeting that he's found a couple of the people he's been interviewing around Clarence Rd who've made mention of lack of the fabled Olympics job opportunities as one of the underliers explaining our rioting. Although pop-up looting might perhaps be an expression more appropriate to the ears of those aspirational about the Olympiad?

Can you credit it? Local MPs and Council leaders are accusing the BBC of undermining the Olympic organisers’ bid to revitalise East London and produce a lasting legacy by refusing to include the Olympic stadium on the Eastenders' map. Among the huffy MPs is Lyn Brown, who said: ‘The more people who know exactly where the stadium is, and how well it is connected to the rest of London, the better.’