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Today, it was announced that the City of Chicago will stir the soul as it will be the United States opportunity to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, as the USOC choose Chicago over Los Angeles. Chicago will compete on a global level against Rio de Janeiro, Madrid, and Tokyo over the next 30 months or so until the International Olympic Committee ultimately decide upon the proper suitor. As for the price tag, one should expect are very large sum of money.
The price tag to build and host a Chicago Olympics is estimated at $5 billion, including a $366 million temporary stadium in Washington Park on the South Side and a $1.1 billion privately developed Olympic Village south of McCormick Place. Costs are projected to be covered by Olympic-related revenue and private donations. But city and state guarantees recently have been pledged in case of operating losses, reversing earlier pledges by Daley that taxpayers would not be at risk.
According to a Chicago Tribune graphic the estimates of costs are usually lower than the reality of it. Atlanta in 1996 estimated $400 million, it ended up being $503 million. Sydney, $895 million, reality was $1.1 billion. Athen estimated $5.5 billion, reality was more like $16 billion. In 2008 Beijing will host the Olympics, which were estimated to cost $14.2 billion but is now being estimated at $40 billion. As for London who received the 2012 Olympics, they estimated $5.9 billion but it now looks like it will cost nearly $18 billion.
"It's not clear why cities want to do this," said Saskia Sassen, a University of Chicago sociology professor and author of "Cities in a World Economy." Often, there is long-term debt incurred and construction of facilities that are underused after the games, she said.
But as Sassen goes onto say Barcelona used the occassian in 1992 to reinvent itself much like Chicago could do on a global scale.
The good news is that the plans for the Olympic village after it has served its purpose.
The Olympic Village, which would be converted to mixed-income housing, as well as improvements to parks along South Lake Shore Drive, would breathe new life into that underutilized stretch of lakefront, Ryan has said.
As with anything it has its pros and cons. The Olympics would more than likely be a major boom for the Chicago economy and its overall reputation in the world. Propelling it more towards the levels of New York and Los Angeles. The concern that lies within is the affect it will have on those who currently reside in the poorer neighborhoods in the Washington Park area and others. More than likely as construction begins to develop the massive park into an Olympic stadium, property rates will increase dramatically forcing people who are predominately poor and have lived in the area for years to move away.
But the next couple of years will truly tell the story of the affects that the Olympics would have on this great city.
Cross posted at Faithfully Liberal