I have had the privilege of working with the International Olympic Committee and Olympic Studies Centre as a recipient of their joint postgraduate research grant. The grant funded a significant portion of my ongoing research, and gave me an opportunity to meet/collaborate with a number of wonderful folks at both organizations. I recently prepared a policy brief for these organizations, which is published here and attached to this post. In the report I lay out a strategy for planning ‘legacy after the bid’, Olympic urban legacies in cities that bid to host the Games but don’t actually secure the hosting rights:
This project examines the urban development impacts of bidding to host Olympic Games. While there is a well-developed scholarship on legacy in Olympic host cities, less is known about the urban legacies of unsuccessful Olympic candidatures. The study addresses this by analyzing land use legacies of bidding in Olympic applicant and candidate cities, during host city elections over a twenty year period (80 bids for Games between 2000 and 2020). It draws on content analysis of bidding documents, and spatial analysis of land use change in bid cities using historical planning documents and maps. The study demonstrates that bids to host Olympics, even when unsuccessful, provide a means for formalizing local development strategies. Likewise, bid plans are often implemented to some degree regardless of a candidature’s success because local stakeholders leverage one sports development plan for use in multiple Olympic and non-Olympic bids, engaging in incremental and speculative investment along the way. The study identifies policy processes that facilitate or hinder urban development legacies after the bid, concluding with recommendations for building local capacity to coordinate across various bids, and for monitoring the urban impacts of unsuccessful bids in cities that bid for the Games multiple times.
The usual disclaimers apply: the opinions presented in the report do not necessarily match those of the indviduals and organizations that contributed to the project. Likewise, any errors or omissions are solely my own. Please feel free to contact me with questions or suggestions for improving/expanding the study.