That the Olympics is ultimately deleterious to their host cities is a counter-intuitive but well-established argument. The idea is that after the crowds leave, there is a big Olympic village and big Olympic stadia and none of them are seeing substantial use. Moreover, the costs to build the village and venues leave the city in a great deal of debt. According to the linked article, Montreal ran up so much debt that it took 29 years to pay it off. I was living on the South Side of Chicago when Chicago proposed its bid for the 2016 Olympics. Though many Chicagoans were excited, some South Siders were angry that their open spaces would be turned into stadia and even that rising property values would force out current residents. You can read about the kerfuffle here.
This post argues, with no evidence, that the World Cup does the opposite. The argument rests on the dilute nature of the World Cup: the entire nation participates, not just one city. This helps financially, since costs are absorbed nationally, or over many cities and not just one. More importantly, I suspect, all the host cities gain improvements, but none of the problem of too many buildings concentrated in one area.
This is just a hunch and I'm probably not going to research it more thoroughly. However, what little research I have done contradicts my thesis while not addressing the dilute city argument. From the above NYT article:
"Studies of the 2006 World Cup in Germany showed that the country experienced little in the way of improvements in income or employment figures, just as most economists would have expected. However, surveys noted a noticeable improvement in residents’ self-reported levels of happiness following the event. The World Cup didn’t make the Germans rich, but it appeared to make them happy."
Monday, June 21, 2010
Johannesburg and the World Cup
In honor of the World Cup, I've been meaning for a while to write a post on Johannesburg and the effect the World Cup will have on it. Johannesburg is one of six cities profiled in Endless City (the others are Berlin, London, Mexico City, New York City, and Shanghai) and of those, it is far and away the most messed up. Johannesburg seems like Detroit only much worse. North and northwest of the city is a prosperous ring of closely guarded homes; in the middle there is violent crime, apartheid-level conditions and a hollowed-out downtown. In the southwest is Soweto, a historically black township with slum-like conditions and more violent crime. The original idea of this post was that the World Cup would benefit the prosperous parts of the city while neglecting the latter two. Or that, like most Olympics, the Cup would prove more of a detriment than anything else. Happily, this seems not to be the case: while benefits seem mixed, the World Cup in Johannesburg seems to be benefiting Soweto more than anyone else.
Two Cautions: Soweto contains roughly 800,000 people. It is a third of the city of Johannesburg's population, and roughly the size of Austin. What goes for part of it does not necessarily go for all of it. This WSJ article, while mostly about the ANC, also discusses economic disparity in Soweto. Also, there was a certain level of improvement in Soweto prior to the World Cup - malls, upper class development. electrification and paving of roads. However, it seems that more benefits have accrued through World Cup preparations.
Notably, Soccer City, the premier stadium for the Cup, is located in the middle of Soweto. The stadium has provided jobs, tourism, and prestige. Infrastructure improvements to beautify the area and reduce crime are also beneficial. But the real benefit, I think, is the new Nasrec train station, designed to accommodate up to 20,000 riders per hour. The station is also safer and prettier than what was there before.
Endless City emphasized the transportation deficits in Johannesburg, noting that a third of all trips are made on foot. This is a serious problem, since limited transit also limits economic opportunity. And if it is true that there is a strong correlation between public transportation and economic justice, then the much improved train station should yield dividends even after the tournament ends, and the crowds go away.
Two Cautions: Soweto contains roughly 800,000 people. It is a third of the city of Johannesburg's population, and roughly the size of Austin. What goes for part of it does not necessarily go for all of it. This WSJ article, while mostly about the ANC, also discusses economic disparity in Soweto. Also, there was a certain level of improvement in Soweto prior to the World Cup - malls, upper class development. electrification and paving of roads. However, it seems that more benefits have accrued through World Cup preparations.
Notably, Soccer City, the premier stadium for the Cup, is located in the middle of Soweto. The stadium has provided jobs, tourism, and prestige. Infrastructure improvements to beautify the area and reduce crime are also beneficial. But the real benefit, I think, is the new Nasrec train station, designed to accommodate up to 20,000 riders per hour. The station is also safer and prettier than what was there before.
Endless City emphasized the transportation deficits in Johannesburg, noting that a third of all trips are made on foot. This is a serious problem, since limited transit also limits economic opportunity. And if it is true that there is a strong correlation between public transportation and economic justice, then the much improved train station should yield dividends even after the tournament ends, and the crowds go away.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Endless City
The Endless City is an immense, 6 pound tome produced from the Urban Age Project run by the London School of Economics and Deutsche Bank's Alfred Herrhausen Society. Combining urban the proceedings from international mayoral conferences and years of research, travel and investigation, it profiles six world cities - New York, London, Berlin, Shanghai, Johannesberg and Mexico City - as well as other global urban issues going into the 21st century. It is awesome, and I'm going to be spending much of the summer reading and discussing it. But tonight, I just want to throw this quote up, from the last paragraph of the introduction:
"... [B]eneath the skin of at least these six world cities lie deep connections between social cohesion and built form, between sustainibility and density, between public transportation and social justice, between public space and tolerance, and between good governance and good cities that matter to the way urban citizens live their lives. Perhaps moreso than ever before, the shape of cities, how much land they occupy, how much energy they consume, how their transport infrastructure is organized and where people are housed - in remote, segregated environments behind walls or in integrated neighborhoods close to jobs, facilities, and transport - all effect the environmental, economic, and social sustainability of global society. One of the overriding realizations of the urban age is that cities are not just concentrations of problems - which they are - but that they are also where problems can be solved."
Words for any urban planner to live by.
"... [B]eneath the skin of at least these six world cities lie deep connections between social cohesion and built form, between sustainibility and density, between public transportation and social justice, between public space and tolerance, and between good governance and good cities that matter to the way urban citizens live their lives. Perhaps moreso than ever before, the shape of cities, how much land they occupy, how much energy they consume, how their transport infrastructure is organized and where people are housed - in remote, segregated environments behind walls or in integrated neighborhoods close to jobs, facilities, and transport - all effect the environmental, economic, and social sustainability of global society. One of the overriding realizations of the urban age is that cities are not just concentrations of problems - which they are - but that they are also where problems can be solved."
Words for any urban planner to live by.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Edge City and Suburban Nation
So I happened to be at the Border in the Domain today, and I read Suburban Nation for a bit. It's a polemic, published 2000, against the suburbs and all the evils the suburbs have wrought. Like Jane Jacobs (to whose book this has been compared) the authors bemoan a lack of diversity in suburban zones, claiming this detracts from diversity. As Jacobs attacked single-use housing projects and business-only downtown buildings, so Duany et al attack the single use suburban division of housing subdivision, bigbox shopping mall, and office park. A particularly damning graphic shows a "bubble map," an entire suburb divided lazily into six zoning sections. As a whole it is a well-written and cogent critique, if not as thorough or insightful as The Death and Birth of Great American Cities.
My problem is this: suburban sprawl is depicted entirely as a result of social trends, decrees from on high, and the bad choices of urban planners themselves. The FHA and interstate highways take the rap for cities spreading out, and the aforementioned zoning codes are blamed for making suburban life itself nightmarish. But the people who choose to live there are never brought up. They are portrayed as the passive victims of a badly designed system, who are powerless to change it. But we know from Edge City that this isn't true. Garreau stresses again and again that Edge City is the result of choices Americans made. Suburbia may be nightmarish, but people embrace that nightmare. People like driving just to get groceries, or circling for the best place to park at the mall. Sometimes malls are better than downtowns and big box stores better than Main Street. I myself was reading their book in an Edge City mall (mixed use, yes, but I only use the shopping part) in a big box book store. The point is that planners can plan better, make useful open space instead of water easements, make many, narrow streets, etc. but we can't make people walk and not drive, or play outside, or live in dense housing. More fundamentally, as long as Americans will move beyond the edge of the current city just to get a house or a bigger house, there will always be sprawl.
Jane Jacobs says in the preface to her book that she likes walking cities more than driving cities, and her book is less useful if you prefer the latter: Duany et al need a similar caveat.
My problem is this: suburban sprawl is depicted entirely as a result of social trends, decrees from on high, and the bad choices of urban planners themselves. The FHA and interstate highways take the rap for cities spreading out, and the aforementioned zoning codes are blamed for making suburban life itself nightmarish. But the people who choose to live there are never brought up. They are portrayed as the passive victims of a badly designed system, who are powerless to change it. But we know from Edge City that this isn't true. Garreau stresses again and again that Edge City is the result of choices Americans made. Suburbia may be nightmarish, but people embrace that nightmare. People like driving just to get groceries, or circling for the best place to park at the mall. Sometimes malls are better than downtowns and big box stores better than Main Street. I myself was reading their book in an Edge City mall (mixed use, yes, but I only use the shopping part) in a big box book store. The point is that planners can plan better, make useful open space instead of water easements, make many, narrow streets, etc. but we can't make people walk and not drive, or play outside, or live in dense housing. More fundamentally, as long as Americans will move beyond the edge of the current city just to get a house or a bigger house, there will always be sprawl.
Jane Jacobs says in the preface to her book that she likes walking cities more than driving cities, and her book is less useful if you prefer the latter: Duany et al need a similar caveat.
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