The Olympics Effect
When the Games are over, which cities win big — and which stumbled?
 | A Chinese worker puts the last touches on a lighting system near the Beijing Olympic Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest, during the rehearsal of Beijing Olympic Games Opening Ceremony. |
Ciro Fusco / EPA file |
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Curmudgeonly contrarians may claim that the Olympics is not about sports, it's about politics. But we know better: The Olympics has always been about improving the appeal of the host city. You let cutting-edge (and sometimes over-the-edge) architects loose on projects no one would ordinarily have the courage to commission. You increase the number of hotel rooms based on a prediction you hope isn't too optimistic. You finally undertake major airport, rail and road projects the city has needed for decades. And you do it all with the goal of attracting tourists not only during the Games but also for years to come.
The process is sometimes called the "Olympics Effect," and perhaps no other host city has embraced it as fully as Beijing, which hasn't had its face so radically altered since the Great Wall was built.
Here's a peek at the legacy the 2008 Summer Games may leave, and a reflection on the benefits — and in some cases, disasters — brought by the Olympics Effect to other host cities.
For a complete slideshow of former Olympic host cities, click here.
1. Beijing, China, Summer 2008: The Architecture Olympics
Going for gold: For Beijing, the Olympics is an ideal showcase for a society that is charging, seemingly unstoppably, into a position of worldwide power and influence. As a result, it has the potential to be one of the most successful Games ever. The effort will be expensive, but when you are attempting to turn a still rough-edged city into "a Chinese-style Manhattan," as one observer described it, an estimated infrastructure cost of $40 billion doesn't seem so unrealistic. In particular, the architecture created in the name of the 2008 Games is being hailed as cutting-edge, with the National Stadium, popularly called the "Bird's Nest", likely to be long remembered as a symbol of a rising China.
Tourism legacy: Cleaner air (some say not clean enough), new roads, a new subway, and several dozen new luxury hotels, including the Opposite House, a 99-room boutique with an eye-catching emerald glass exterior.
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Results: It could be a gold, or a bronze, depending on whether unpredictable weather patterns blanket the city with pollution or pro-Tibet activists find a way to make their case heard. And there's also the chance that it will all collapse into chaos once the international spotlight has moved elsewhere.
Take a tour of the impressive sights in and around Beijing, from Tiananmen Square to the Forbidden City.
2. Barcelona, Summer 1992: The Successful Olympics
Going for gold: Barcelona's Games was such a success that you can be damn sure every subsequent Olympic host studied its model carefully. It not only presented a face to the world that everyone wanted to see more of, it also built an infrastructure that could accommodate them. We can't help but think Bilbao took a few tips from Barcelona before the "Bilbao Effect" sparked global interest five years after the Games. To realize that the formula isn't as simple as it sounds, however, you only need know that the next Summer Games to follow Barcelona — Atlanta — was one of the most disorganized, image-tarnishing Olympics ever.
Tourism legacy: Although the weird communications tower designed by Santiago Calatrava became one of the symbols of the event, the 1992 Games' real legacy is the overhaul, as part of $8 billion in infrastructure spending, of Barcelona's port and coast, and the transformation of the shanty villages of Poblenou into neighborhoods people would actually want to visit. It also raised the city's profile and showcased its unique architecture and cuisine.
Results: Gold. Although critics complained that housing prices increased dramatically in newly gentrified neighborhoods, the bright side was that as a result of the Games, Barcelona has so increased its tourism numbers that it is now fourth — after London, Paris, and Rome — among the most visited cities in Europe.
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3. Atlanta, Summer 1996: The Bad Olympics
Going for gold: The Atlanta Games were not one of the more stellar performances in Olympics history. As in L.A., the organizers in Atlanta were dedicated to hosting on the cheap — raising so much sponsorship money that we almost expected to see athletes passing a Coca-Cola bottle instead of a torch. And, considering the general mess made of logistics, not knowing which way to run with it.
Tourism legacy: At a cost of $1.7 billion, virtually all of it paid from private sources, the Games at least proved financially solvent. The Atlanta Braves baseball team now plays at what was originally the Olympic Stadium; should you visit Centennial Olympic Park, get someone to show you where the bomb went off.
Results: Did not finish. We knew what the world thought when the president of the International Olympic Committee, who traditionally ends the event by calling them "the best Games ever," couldn't bring himself to do it.
4. Turin, Italy, Winter 2006: The "America Voted" Olympics
Going for gold: No one expects the Winter Games to attract as much attention as the summer version. But how would you like to be the host city whose Winter Games were beaten in the TV ratings by "American Idol"? And the local crowd, judging by the number of empty seats, didn't seem that much more interested. Yet despite those embarrassments, the Olympics were good for Turin; the $3.6 billion it spent was part of a larger, more ambitious effort by the long-decaying city, home of the Shroud of Turin (and the automaker Fiat), to reinvent itself as a destination capable of competing for visitors with the likes of Milan and Florence. Helping toward that end, even though much of the competition took place hours away in the mountains, were the ceremonies in the piazzas (pictured) around town, which gained these Games the agreeable sobriquet "the Piazza Olympics."
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Tourism legacy: Probably most significant will be a project that began with the Olympics: the "Spina," a wide swath of redevelopment that will be associated with a gallery of architectural projects from acclaimed designers and that is to become the cultural center of the reemerging city.
Results: Silver. Never mind the near bankruptcy that threatened to keep the Games from opening — that just seemed so Italian. If the events had been slotted during reruns of "Joey," the TV ratings would have been higher.
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