On Fri, 16 Mar 2007 07:40:04 +0000, Marc Brett
wrote:
On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 22:18:15 +0000, wrote:
On 15 Mar 2007 14:17:59 -0700, "alex_t"
wrote:
Its probable that a certain amount of tourist income will be generated,
but experience shows that it usually falls well short of the estimates
(remember those thousands of empty seats in the broadcasts from
Athens?).
There are many other ways that the money will be returned - one of the
major is cost of broadcast rights. Plus selling the new flats in
Olympic village, etc.
And what may I ask are these things going to do for the poor and
homeless of London .
They will generate a great deal more homeless and poor, if history is any guide.
Salt Lake City promised 2500 units of low-cost houing; only 150 were delivered,
and prices for residential hotels increased 300%. The year before the Sydney
Olympics, tenant evictions increased by 400%. In Atlanta, Project Homeward
Bound gave the homeless a one-way ticket out of town before the Olympics began.
In Calgary, none of the promised low-cost housing units were delivered, only a
few university dorms. (Not Olympic-related, but Habitat 67, a low cost housing
project for the 1967 World Fail in Montreal, became luxury condominiums.)
Being a bit blunt I doubt we would be as crass as North America / Canada
in how we deal with any similar issues.
And how will London's £600 million security budget be spent? In racist
repressions, most likely. In Los Angeles, 1984, the black communities
surrounding the olympic sites were cordoned off and police required IDs from
everyone entering or leaving the areas. Similar arrangements for Atlanta, 1996.
Muslims in Athens, 2004, were subjected to increased surveillance in their
mosques, and mass document checks. Amnesty International said "security for the
2004 Olympics is used in Greece as a pretext to systematically break
international treaties on the right to refugees". Laws were passed in Sydney to
allow increased surveillance, search and seizure, and military involvement in
law enforcement, just for the Olympics, but, surprise!, they are still in force.
I expect we've already got all the repressive legislation already
courtesy of having people blow themselves up on our Tube network. You
cannot ignore the facts that the Olympics are a huge and attractive
target for terrorists and also that London and the UK are also a target.
While I take the point about repression and would be against racist and
disproportionate action we still have to recognise that money has to be
spent to control, mitigate or remove the risk of such attacks.
I lived in Montreal for the 1976 Olympics - great party, but the bill was only
finally paid off in 2002. I lived in Calgary for the 1988 Olympics - great
party but a $910 million debt, and no measurable long-term economic benefit.
Sydney was proud to host a "self-financing" Olympics in 2000 but still got
burdened with a $2.3 billion debt.
I don't doubt there will be a debt post the Olympics but I expect it
will take less time to pay off than for a number of other cities given
the strength of London's economy and its projected growth well beyond
2012. Assuming Ken is still around as Mayor I think the requirement to
secure proper regeneration will be followed through. There are other
important factors like CTRL at Stratford and the effect of Docklands and
Thames Gateway expansion / regeneration that mean that regeneration at
the Olympic sites are more likely to succeed than other cities. I
recognise there is a risk that it may not be so we'll have to wait and
see and one of us can say to other "I told you so".
And now London's TfL budget is being raided to finance construction costs, but
they also have to deliver better public transportation for the games? WTF?
Complete and utter speculation by journalists. For reasons I have
outlined elsewhere in the thread there are too many risks to TfL's
continued capital funding for people to play "fast and loose" with TfL's
budgets and reserves.
I can see the PR spin now -- "Complaints have been raised that cash fares are
far in excess of Oyster fares. To make the system fairer for everyone, Oyster
fares, as of next week, will rise to the level of cash fares, which are also
going up by an amount only modestly higher than inflation. This will help make
the Olympic experience the best that it can be for residents and tourists alike.
This is a temporary measure, and will last only as long as we are paying off the
Olympic debt."
The Mayor has said the exact opposite of this both prior to and after
the £9bn cost announcement. The Mayor would also be unable to weather
the political storm that would follow if he was mad enough to take such
a step. Ken is many things but politically stupid / suicidal he is not.
--
Paul C
Admits to working for London Underground!