The Olympics
closing ceremonies are behind us and the City of Sochi is beginning to ponder what
to do with $51 billion of streets and stadiums that were built for a now
concluded two-week party.
It won’t be
an easy task for Sochi. A report by a
South Carolina television station provides a short summary of the fate of past Olympic host cities. There are a few bright spots, but the overall
picture is bleak.
I’ve often
suggested that a rotation of Olympic sites might be a reasonable way to control
costs and to minimize the civic disruptions of massive Olympic construction. (The British Open uses a similar “rota” of
golf courses and has been an admirable success for more than 150 years.) Perhaps the four most recent Summer and
Winter Olympic host cities, with one site added for geographical balance, could
be the start of a conversation. The
quadrennial Olympics would return to each host city every twenty years.
But even that
concept seems troublesome. Perhaps sufficient
uses can be found for the athletic venues in the twenty years between Olympics,
but what about the other Olympic necessities?
How does one build an Olympic Village that can sit idle for two decades without
becoming a wound in the civic fabric? If
the Olympic Villages are converted to housing, how does the host city evict the
tenants for two weeks during the Olympics?
Or must new Olympic Villages be built every twenty years, stretching the
urban area?
Writing in
Next City, Will Doig suggests a possible solution, allowing Olympics to become more regional.
Olympics
have always been somewhat regional, particularly the Winter Games. The alpine venues for the Sochi Olympics were
about an hour from Sochi. The same hour
of travel applied to Vancouver.
But the
Summer Games can also have a geographical spread. I attended the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. The first event I watched was a soccer game
at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto. The
next was rowing on Lake Casitas in Ventura County. I was well into my Olympic experience before
I even reached the Los Angeles Basin.
And once there, I watch water polo in Malibu and basketball in
Inglewood. The only Olympic sport I watched
in the City of Los Angeles was baseball at Dodger Stadium.
But Doig
takes the concept to a higher level.
Among other ideas, he suggests a possible Ohio Olympics that would
include events in Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland.
I find great
merit in the concept. The disruption to
each of the partial host cities would be reduced. It would be a shame to lose the concept of
the single “Olympic Plaza” in the host city where all can mingle, but sacrificing
that element to the long-term health of our cities seems a reasonable tradeoff.
So, what
might a Northern California regional Olympics look like? And could the North Bay participate?
To begin, I
would expect to have major pods of activities in San Francisco, Oakland, San
Jose, and Sacramento.
The Opening
and Closing Ceremonies could be at the new stadium in Santa Clara.
The last
time San Francisco looked at an Olympic bid, the proposed rowing venue was Lake
Natomas on the far side of Sacramento.
Perhaps gymnastics could be put in whatever basketball arena eventually results
in Sacramento.
San Jose was
a long-time site of a professional tennis tournament. It could presumably host the tennis competition.
And so on throughout
Northern California.
And what
about the North Bay? Could we fill a
gap? If memory serves, the Olympics
include road racing and velodrome racing for bicycles. I suspect that a fine road course could be
found through the vineyards of Napa and Sonoma Counties. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Napa could
also make good use of a velodrome, perhaps complementing the wine and food
attractions of the region.
And I would
certain hope that a marathon course could begin in southern Marin County before
crossing the Golden Gate Bridge.
A regional
Olympics isn’t going to happen for awhile yet, probably not in my
lifetime. The current model still has too
many potential host cities happy to willfully harm themselves for two weeks of
glory. But the regional model makes a
lot of sense as fiscal and urbanist realities become more evident. And it’s always good to have a new model to
replace a failed model.
Meanwhile,
it’s onward to Rio 2016. Today is the
official start of the “Will Rio be ready?”and “Can Brazil financially survive
the Olympics?” worry fest.
As always,
your questions or comments will be appreciated.
Please comment below or email me.
And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)
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