Three years following the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul, South Korea, 508 questionnaires were completed by a sample of residents in Chamsil, the region closest to the Olympic Village. Results of the 1991 survey indicate that Chamsil residents considered the Olympic Legacy to be generally beneficial. Among improvements the mega-sports event brought to the area were listed urban redevelopment and “socio-cultural impacts,” but the cost was considered a negative economic impact.
Interestingly, a majority of residents did not perceive any noticeable negative socio-cultural impacts, yet “age,” “marital status” and “residence area” proved to be the most important demographic variables in the perception of these impacts.
Potentially more relevant to the Chicago 2016 question, however, are the findings of an assessment ten years following the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta, Georgia (United States) by the Centre on Housing and Rights and Evictions:
Ten years later Atlanta continues the housing gentrification and displacement that had cost 30,000 people their homes. Atlanta continues its criminalization of poor and homeless people with the recent passage of a law against panhanding in “the tourist triangle.” The city that described itself as “too busy to hate” is blatantly the city too greedy to care. And that is the memory that haunts poor and homeless Atlantans and renews their nightmare daily. . . . The 1996 Olympic Games and the development plans surrounding that mega-event had provided the drama, the energy and the interest in long-held dreams of politicians and investors alike to propel Atlanta into the ranks of international cities. Today, ten years after the mega-event that attracted developers and planners to try again to gain control of the city, downtown is exploding with expensive, high-rise, inner-city loft and condominium construction. . . . The development boom makes no room for working poor Atlantans, the majority of whom can afford rents between $250 and $500 a month.
The report, entitled “Atlanta’s Olympic Legacy,” ends with several recommendations we in Chicago might consider carefully. (You will notice that the IOC is held partially responsible here. This is possibly because, according CoHRE’s own findings, the last 20 years of Games have involved the displacement of approximately 2 million people, forming a fairly consistent pattern that accompanies the mega-sports event.) CoHRE’s recommendations are reprinted here in their entirety:
1. The International Olympic Committee should establish requirements that the bid process be developed publicly, with all segments of Civil Society represented in an assessment of the city’s housing and social supports for all its citizens.
2. A documented description and accounting of all low income housing units must accompany each bid, with a post-Olympic documentation of no reduction in housing units for poor people.
3. A fund must be developed to secure tenure for poor people in cases of unforeseen displacement.
4. There must be no forced evictions or even displacement of people caused either by preparation or hosting of the Olympic Games.
5. The civil rights of all citizens of bidding cities must be protected and that protection documented to the satisfaction of local, national and international human and civil rights organizations.
6. There must be no sweeping poor and homeless people into jails and off the streets.
Tags: Atlanta, Chicago 2016, civil rights, housing, Human Rights, Nolympics, Olympics, Seoul
