Photo from a New York Times series examining the true impact of the Chinese Olympics.
China’s Olympics were stunning — a tour de force from start to finish, by every single account that I’ve read. It’s incalculable just how much money they poured into the venues, the accommodations, the atheletes themselves, and spectacle that surrounded the Games. (Some calculations peg it at $43 billion, but I think that’s low. It’s still triple any other host city.)
Now the question is, how much of that was wasted? I’ve read often that Olympic host cities, even if they go into debt over the Games themselves, are left with a net benefit, in terms of actual buildings and athletic facilities that can be put to good use for years to come. I just visited the Stade Olympique in Montreal a couple of years ago — and its subway was top-notch. That’s 33 years on, and still providing benefits.
Calgary is still using its Saddledome and alpine facilities — in fact, they’re renting out some 88 Olympic facilities to the Brits for 2010.
Vancouver hopes to use the athletes village for social housing.
But China might be left with some gigantic white elephants. From the LA Times:
Six months after the Games ended, [Beijing] continues to dazzle by night, with neon and floodlights dancing across the skyline. By day, though, it is obvious that many are “see-through” buildings, to use the term coined during the Texas real estate bust of the 1980s.
… 500 million square feet of commercial real estate has been developed in Beijing since 2006, more than all the office space in Manhattan. And that doesn’t include huge projects developed by the government … 100 million square feet of office space is vacant — a 14-year supply.
Yikes. The “Bird’s Nest” stadium? Empty except for one day this year. A less-than-a-year-old baseball stadium? Up for demolition. The press centre? “Cavernous” and “empty” says the Times:
The makeover of Beijing for the Olympics led to an estimated 1.5 million residents being evicted from their homes, according to the Geneva-based Center on Housing Rights and Evictions.
In this vibrant capital city of 17 million, there is an insatiable demand for housing, yet prices remain far out of reach of most residents …. Homes are being advertised for more than $1 million in gated communities …. Two- and three-bedroom apartments are offered for $800,000 …
The average salary in Beijing is less than $6,000 a year.
Grant Hamilton
9 Responses to “Olympics: I hope Vancouver does it better”
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Haha. Take that, China!
Actually Montreal ended up pretty devastated financially after the games (apparently called the Big Owe). They only finished paying off the stadium in 2006…one year after the Expos moved out, and it’s still empty. Also the subway was already there, but just got extended a little bit, but honestly that probably would have happened eventually anyways.
Well, it may have been expensive — and you could argue that Montreal made bad investments in terms of what they built for the Olympics and how they paid for it — but at least they got infrastructure out of the deal. Infrastructure that was used.
I mean, sports facilities very rarely pay for themselves anyway — they’re not profit makers — but we build them because it’s good public policy. The Olympics is just a catalyst for bigger and better sports facilities in a particular city. The tragedy of China is that the country blew its wad on glitz, glamour and spectacle for the Olympics without really thinking about what the buildings were going to be used for after.
Ya I think when you’re building infrastructure should usually be “ya this will probably go over budget, but just do it anyways stupid”. Which is why Winnipeg (and basically any large city that didn’t try to make some kind of rapid transit in the 70s) are idiots/kicking themselves now cause they still need it as bad, but it will probably cost more now. Though it looks like in Winnipeg’s case we’ll probably just be half-assing it.
Agreed! So agreed! Governments spend so much time and money “studying” the issue that they end up behind schedule, over budget, and cutting portions of whatever they’re supposed to be building.
The worst are the so called public-private “partnerships” — I’m going to blog about that some day (essentially, they’re a way for speculators, uh, investors, to get rich while government assumes all the risk and is left holding the bag.
Also, did you ever see the proposed plans for the Winnipeg subway system? First proposed in the 50s. Imagine the city today if that had been built!
That proposed plan just makes me angry. If it existed I would be able to take it right to work assuming that it would probably would have expanded eventually to have a station near regent and lagimodiere.
You guys have to understand a little something about China and its Olympics.
The normal rules of money, proper real estate rules, fiscal management, etc etc…? Don’t apply here.
This event was ALL about face — saving it, looking good in front of the world, whatever you call it. Price was literally no object. And never was going to be.
China has a huge historical chip on its shoulder about its place in the modern world, after the colonial powers occupied it in the late 19th C. and early 20th. Basically, it got its shit together the past 30 years and is now a major player…and wants the world to see that.
Worrying about paying the bills isn’t on the agenda, never was.
As you well know Colin, while what you say is obviously true, that still doesn’t justify how they did it, or the end result six months on. The size of the bill and the benefits new infrastructure would ultimately have to the country should have been at least a thought. The rest of the world really didn’t give a rats rear end about their predilection to save face, and the end result still makes them look terrible.
As beautiful as the China Olympics were, they got a whole lot more bad press than they bargained for in the lead up, during, and now after. So much for saving face.
And now it appears most of that chip on their shoulder isn’t getting knocked off, it’s getting knocked down. What a waste.
You’re still looking at it from an external POV. The Olys were about China, ultimately.
The perspective from inside a world power is very, very different than from a place like Canada which, frankly, is a lot more objective and reasonable in its outlook. We have no agenda, we have no overwhelming self-delusion or legend to live up to.
I noticed the same thing about the USA – inside, the world is a very different place. You just think about the rest of the world differently…it’s ‘someplace else’ and it’s the same with China. More so, really, because they have 5000 years or so of that legend factored in the mix.
Besides, their behaviour is rewarded. Bad press? So what?