[dragonsky]

2024 Summer Olympics | Games of the XXXIII Olympiad - Candidate Cities
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showth...874381&page=42

Originally Posted by Time

The Summer Olympics Should Always Be in Los Angeles. Forever.

Rio is an extreme example of what happens to almost all cities that host the summer Olympics. These days hosting the summer Games runs between $15 billion and $20 billion. With some good fortune, hosting may produce $4.5 billion in revenue—yielding a deficit of $5 billion to $10 billion. Not a favorable financial balance in the short run.

The roughly $20 billion that will be spent on Rio’s Olympics has pushed the city over the edge financially. The state and the city are bankrupt. Teachers are on strike. Public servants are protesting, carrying “Welcome to Hell” signs at the airport to greet incoming tourists. Meanwhile, the economy is in its worst recession in decades, unemployment exceeds 11%, and violence flourishes on the streets.

Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, recently said she would favor having Athens as the permanent host of the summer Olympics. The logic is mostly sound: why not build the required 35 sports venues, the Olympic village and the broadcasting and media center only once, instead of building them anew in a different city every four years? There are three problems with this symbolically soothing suggestion: one, what is Athens going to do with the venues for the three years and 348 days between each Olympic spectacle? Two, aren’t there better uses of thousands of acres of scarce urban real estate? Three, where is Athens to find the $2 billion it will need for security at each Olympics?

There’s a better idea: make Los Angeles the permanent host. It has all the venues, the needed infrastructure and the hotels.

http://time.com/4396796/olympic-host-city/