Greg Clark
Last week I spent an energizing 24 hours in Boston, during which the city hosted several important debates about a potential 2024 Olympic bid. Last year The Urban Land Institute published my report, “To Bid or Not to Bid: Making Global Events Work for City Development.” So I arrived in Boston armed with case studies from over 50 cities that have bid for an Olympic Games, A World Cup, a World EXPO or similar event.
The Olympics Games can be the right choice for many cities, but not just because they love sport. The Games work if the city has a clear long-term vision for development, and if it can use bidding as a catalyst and accelerator to realize that plan.
For most cities the aim is to trigger and manage a new cycle of growth by investing in infrastructure, re-zoning land, unlocking disused sites, creating new housing and flexible facilities, boosting tourism, trade, and investment, and creating new institutions and better, coordinated leadership.
These things come with costs, but they trigger high value development cycles over several decades that follow. The Games generally pay for themselves through sponsorship and ticketing; the question is whether the host city wants to improve itself in the process of bidding or hosting.
Bidding for the games brings three unique elements together: unmissable deadlines, global exposure and intense competition. Winning the contest to be named as the host, or at least making a credible bid, is driven by these three factors, and they expose the city and reveal its challenges. It almost always involves addressing infrastructure deficits, logjams and stalled projects, and the parts of the city of which the citizens are not so proud. That means the Games bid become an accelerator for making a better city.
London Wins, New York Loses
A tale of two cities that bid for the 2012 Olympics is instructive.
London won the right to stage the 2012 Olympics and in so doing it redeveloped its most polluted and un-investable former industrial sites. It created a new park, homes and rail lines, and is now transforming the key Olympic facilities into a cluster of world-class scientific and artistic institutions. London had a plan. It wanted to redevelop its east side so that its people could one day be as prosperous and healthy as those who live in the West End of London. Andy Altman, former CEO of the London 2012 Legacy Company, speaking at the ULI seminar in Boston, argued that a substantial proportion of the $15 billion that London spent on the Olympics was on investment that the British government needed and wanted to do anyway; the Olympic Games provided the imperative to do it in one concentrated time period.
New York did not win the right to host either 2008 or the 2012 Games, but it used the two bidding periods to optimum effect, overcoming resistance to land-use change and creating major expansions in transit, public space, parks, sports facilities and housing. Entering the competition for the 2008 and 2012 Games gave New York two, three-and-a-half year periods when the bids were “live” and major transformations could be achieved. Dan Doctoroff, the business and civic leader and former deputy mayor, and Prof. Alex Garvin from Yale University had a plan. Open up the major sites in New York by bidding for the Olympics, and then optimize the outcomes for the city’s long-term needs. The benefits of bidding well, whilst not winning, have been substantial, and for only a fraction of the cost of actually hosting the Games.
A City Of Immense Potential
Should Boston bid to host the 2024 Olympics? Only the people of Boston and Massachusetts can answer that.
But there is a larger question that comes first: what is Boston’s appetite for planning and shaping its own future? Boston is regarded internationally not just as a historic city of great character, but as the one of the world’s top knowledge hubs. The presence of world leading universities with global students and faculty, major scientific corporations, the Innovation District, Route 128, the recent major urban redevelopments, and the diverse and cosmopolitan cultural scene means that Boston is a city of immense potential. The world would expect a great Olympic bid from Boston.
Does Boston want to assemble these competitive assets together with civic pride to create a coherent vision and plan to increase housing, connectivity, jobs and leadership? That would require cooperation between the city, state and indeed the whole metro area, to position Boston to lead in the world, and to enjoy the fruits of success through well planned growth at home.
Is Boston up for that? If so, an Olympics Bid may be just what you need to get fit and be ready.
Greg Clark is a senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute.
