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ILLUSTRATION BY JEMMA ROBINSON
 OVER THE LAST THREE DECADES, MAJOR EVENTS LIKE THE OLYMPICS AND THE WORLD CUP HAVE PROVEN TO BE EFFECTIVE CATALYSTS FOR CITY REGENERATION. But hang on to your Olympic hoops, I hear you cry. What about Athens, which actually lost 70,000 jobs just after the 2004 Games? Or Atlanta, where some neighbourhoods lost housing to the Olympics development? And what about the money? Only Los Angeles has managed to turn a profit on the Games themselves.
Take the long view, though, and it’s clear that big events can bring big benefits to a city. Who would have believed in 1990 that “Glasgow’s Miles Better”? But Glasgow used its European City of Culture status in 1990 as a major tool to revive its flagging economy, proving that culture could be translated into tourism, business ventures and jobs as well as museums and concert halls. It didn’t happen overnight, but within 10 years the city centre had been transformed. The number of foreign visitors rose by 50%, and the number of conferences held in the city doubled. Indeed, the city was so pleased with the City of Culture effect that it’s been in the bidding again, and is now looking forward to hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2014.
Before the Olympics in 1992, Barcelona was considered sleazy. Now it is one of Europe’s hippest cities. The building of the Olympic village swept away acres of derelict warehouses and railway sidings, connecting the inner city to the sea and bequeathing the people of Barcelona a vibrant new waterfront with bars, cafés and restaurants.
At the time of the games, Barcelona covered only about a third of its $10bn initial investment, but its tourist numbers almost doubled afterwards and have remained high ever since. The knock-on regeneration is continuing with a huge mixed-use development of flats, lofts in old industrial buildings, hotels, offices and workshops behind the waterfront.
Of course, big events alone cannot resolve every economic and social ill facing a city, and event organisers have a tendency to overrate the possible outcomes. But by embedding the planning for an event within long-term planning and strategies for the host city, organisers can dramatically improve their chances of success.
Manchester, for example, has never looked back since the 2002 Commonwealth Games, which bolstered the city’s reputation as an up and coming European and world city. An ongoing £2bn (€2.8bn) regeneration programme has already seen 12,500 new homes built, 7,000 homes refurbished and the local population double.
So can the people of Beijing, Liverpool, London and other cities hosting forthcoming events expect similar benefits? Yes, says one of the few experts in this field, Beatriz Garcia, an adviser to the London Olympics in 2012 and Cordoba’s bid to be the European Cultural Capital in 2016. But to be successful, she says, host cities must have a genuine story to sell, and some core strengths and unique attributes worth shouting about.
She says that hosting the 1990 event enabled Glasgow to make visible the strengths that already existed in the city and to publicise a narrative about Glasgow that, until then, had been very difficult to tell. Similarly Barcelona, she says, had a very strong creative and cultural story that had not been told. But Garcia warns that cities shouldn’t get lazy and simply try to adopt the same approaches and messages employed elsewhere. The trick is to convey a message that is distinct and credible… long after the event has gone.
Ian Wylie is a freelance writer for The Guardian, Management Today, Fast Company and other publications.
SINCE THE BEGINNING OF MODERN CIVILISATION, EVERY CITY IN THE WORLD HAS DREAMED OF THE CHANCE TO SHOW OFF A LITTLE BIT; to draw in delighted tourists, to boost their economy and to seize the excuse to call in the builders and decorators for a major redevelopment. But such dreams are exactly that. The truth is that organising and hosting a major event almost always brings more headaches than benefits, and they always cost billions more than the planners claim. Right now, Madrid and Prague are just two European cities that are hoping they will win the prize of the 2016 Olympics. Some prize.
Cities that are awarded big events expect to generate billions in revenues from visitors and new jobs, but they are mistaken. London, soon to be an Olympic host, claimed the 2012 games would cost a couple of billion pounds, but within six months of winning the bid the cost was revised up to around £10bn (€14bn), which has now grown to be in excess of £20bn (€28bn) at least.
That’s a heavy burden for London taxpayers. Athens is still paying off billions of euros of debt after hosting the 2004 games, which cost far more than had originally been estimated. It took Montreal 30 years to pay off its debts. The trouble is that politicians know the sums don’t add up, but they ignore that annoying little fact because they like to be associated with success and can’t resist the opportunities to bask in the reflected glory. Never believe your politicians when they say the “Games” will cost “so many” billion euros. You should quadruple the amount immediately and then keep your fingers crossed because the sky really is the limit.
Another worrying side effect of hosting a major event is that once the green light is given, the event will be used as an excuse to demolish protected buildings, uproot whole communities (so that stadiums can be built), build unwanted motorways and to push through “necessary” projects that would never have otherwise gone further than the drawing board.
London’s Olympics bidders spouted the usual codswallop about their “deep love of sport and desire to encourage people to play sport” but one of their first acts has been to grant permission for existing sports fields to be turned into giant parking lots for the Olympic officials during the 2012 games.
Winning the title of Capital of Culture, at least, doesn’t cost as much as hosting an Olympics, but the year long “event” is still used to spend taxpayers’ money on tourist promotions and special cultural events. And as with London hosting the Olympics, it’s hard to see the long-term benefit. Athens, Amsterdam, Berlin and Paris have all held the title, but so too have Patras and Cork. It does seem rather like the egalitarian teacher making sure that all the children in the class get their turn at being Best Student of the Week.
Meanwhile, Ireland denies that it has been deliberately choosing rubbish songs to avoid ever winning the Eurovision song contest again. But the truth is that three wins in a short space of time swallowed up a huge chunk of the national TV station’s entertainment budget. Learn the lessons of history and tear up your host city application form!
Rosie Carr is deputy editor of Investors Chronicle and contributes to a range of other financial publications.
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No SAYS ROSIE CARR