Olympic Cities: City Agendas, Planning, and the World's Games, 1896-2016

465 Pages·2010·5.63 MB·English

by  John R. Gold

OLYMPIC CITIES • i
OLYMPIC CITIES
The first edition of Olympic Cities, edited by John and Margaret Gold, provided the first full
overview of the changing relationship between cities and the Olympic events since 1896. This
substantially revised and enlarged edition builds on the success of its predecessor. Three years
on, its coverage takes account of important new scholarship as well as adding reflections on the
experience of staging Beijing 2008 and Vancouver 2010, the state of preparations for London
2012, and the plans for the Games scheduled for Sochi in 2014 and Rio de Janeiro 2016.
The first of the book’s three parts provides overviews of the urban legacy of the four
component Olympic festivals: the Summer Games; Winter Games; Cultural Olympiads; and
the Paralympics. The second part comprises systematic surveys of five key aspects of activity
involved in staging the Olympics: finance; place promotion; security; urban regeneration;
and tourism. The final part consists of ten chronologically arranged portraits of host cities,
from 1936 to 2016, with particular emphasis on the first four Summer Olympic Games of the
twenty-first century. An Afterword stresses the role and strengthening of the Olympic brand.
As controversy over the growing size and expense of the Olympics continues unabated, this
book’s incisive and timely assessment of the Games’ development and the complex agendas
that host cities attach to the event will be essential reading not only for urban and sports
historians, urban geographers, planners and all concerned with understanding the relationship
between cities and culture, but for anyone with an interest in the staging of mega-events.
John R. Gold is Professor of Urban Historical Geography at Oxford Brookes University.
Margaret M. Gold is Senior Lecturer in Arts and Heritage Management and an Associate of
the Cities Institute at London Metropolitan University.
ii • OLYMPIC CITIES
Planning, History and Environment Series
Editor:
Emeritus Professor Dennis Hardy, High Peak, UK
Editorial Board:
Professor Arturo Almandoz, Universidad Simón Bolivar, Caracas, Venezuela and Pontificia
Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
Professor Gregory Andrusz, London, UK
Professor Nezar AlSayyad, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Professor Robert Bruegmann, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
Professor Meredith Clausen, University of Washington, Seattle, USA
Professor Robert Freestone, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Professor John R. Gold, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
Professor Sir Peter Hall, University College London, UK
Emeritus Professor Anthony Sutcliffe, Nottingham, UK
Technical Editor
Ann Rudkin, Alexandrine Press, Marcham, Oxfordshire, UK
Selection of published titles
Planning Europe’s Capital Cities: Aspects of nineteenth Remaking Chinese Urban Form: modernity, scarcity
century development by Thomas Hall (paperback and space, 1949–2005 by Duanfang Lu
2010) Planning Twentieth Century Capital Cities edited by
Selling Places: The marketing and promotion of towns David L.A. Gordon (paperback 2010)
and cities, 1850–2000 by Stephen V. Ward Planning the Megacity: Jakarta in the twentieth century
Changing Suburbs: Foundation, form and function by Christopher Silver
edited by Richard Harris and Peter Larkham Designing Australia’s Cities: Culture, commerce and the
The Australian Metropolis: A planning history edited city beautiful, 1900–1930 by Robert Freestone
by Stephen Hamnett and Robert Freestone Ordinary Places, Extraordinary Events: Citizenship,
Utopian England: Community experiments 1900– democracy and urban space in Latin America edited by
1945 by Dennis Hardy Clara Irazábal
Urban Planning in a Changing World: The twentieth The Evolving Arab City: Tradition, modernity and
century experience edited by Robert Freestone urban development edited by Yasser Elsheshtawy
Twentieth-Century Suburbs: A morphological approach Stockholm: The making of a metropolis by Thomas
by J.W.R. Whitehand and C.M.H. Carr Hall
Council Housing and Culture: The history of a social Dubai: Behind an urban spectacle by Yasser
experiment by Alison Ravetz Elsheshtawy
Planning Latin America’s Capital Cities, 1850–1950 Capital Cities in the Aftermath of Empires: Planning
edited by Arturo Almandoz (paperback 2010) in central and southeastern Europe edited by Emily
Exporting American Architecture, 1870– 2000 by Gunzburger Makaš and Tanja Damljanović
Jeffrey W. Cody Conley
Planning by Consent: The origins and nature of British Lessons in Post-War Reconstruction: Case studies from
development control by Philip Booth Lebanon in the aftermath of the 2006 war edited by
Howayda Al-Harithy
The Making and Selling of Post-Mao Beijing by
Anne-Marie Broudehoux Orienting Istanbul: Cultural capital of Europe? edited
by Deniz Göktürk, Levent Soysal and İpek Türeli
Planning Middle Eastern Cities: An urban kaleidoscope
in a globalizing world edited by Yasser Elsheshtawy Olympic Cities: City agendas, planning and the world’s
(paperback 2010) games 1896–2016, 2nd edition edited by John R.
Gold and Margaret M. Gold
Globalizing Taipei: the political economy of spatial
development edited by Reginald Yin-Wang Kwok The Making of Hong Kong: From vertical to volumetric
by Barrie Shelton, Justyna Karakiewicz and
New Urbanism and American Planning: The conflict of
Thomas Kvan
cultures by Emily Talen
OLYMPIC CITIES • iii
OLYMPIC CITIES
City Agendas, Planning and the
World’s Games, 1896–2016
Second Edition
edited by
John R. Gold
and
Margaret M. Gold
First edition published 2008
by Routledge
This edition published 2011
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2011.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
© 2011 Selection and editorial material: John R. Gold and Margaret M. Gold; individual
chapters: the contributors
This book was commissioned and edited by Alexandrine Press, Marcham, Oxfordshire
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
The right of the editors to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the
authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and
78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of
the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability
for any errors or omissions that may be made.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Olympic cities: city agendas, planning, and the world’s games,
1896-2016 / edited by John R. Gold and Margaret M. Gold. — 2nd ed.
p. cm. — (Planning, history and environment series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–415–48657–6 (hbk : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–415–48658–3
(pbk : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–203–84074–0 (ebk) 1. City
planning—History. 2. Municipal government—History. 3. Municipal
services—History. 4. Olympics—History. 5. Olympics—Planning. 6. Olympics—
Management—History. I. Gold, John Robert. II. Gold, Margaret M.
HT166.O4 2011
307.1’21609—dc22
2010016608
ISBN 0-203-84074-7 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN13: 978–0–415–48658–3(pbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–48657–6(hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–203–84074–0(ebk)
OLYMPIC CITIES • v
For David Pepper
vi • OLYMPIC CITIES
OLYMPIC CITIES • vii
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xiii
The Contributors xv
List of Acronyms xix
1 Introduction 1
John R. Gold and Margaret M. Gold
Part I The Olympic Festivals
2 From A to B: The Summer Olympics, 1896–2008 17
John R. Gold and Margaret M. Gold
3 The Winter Olympics: Driving Urban Change, 1924–2014 56
Stephen J. Essex
4 The Cultural Olympiads: Reviving the Panegyris 80
Margaret M. Gold and George Revill
5 The Paralympic Games 108
John R. Gold and Margaret M. Gold
Part II Planning and Management
6 Financing the Games 131
Paul Kitchin
7 Promoting the Olympic City 148
Stephen V. Ward
8 Olympic Security 167
Jon Coaffee and Peter Fussey
9 Urban Regeneration and Renewal 180
Jon Coaffee
10 Olympic Tourism 194
Mike Weed
Part III City Portraits
11 Berlin 1936 215
Monika Meyer
12 Mexico City 1968 233
Michael Barke
viii • OLYMPIC CITIES
13 Montreal 1976 247
Daniel Latouche
14 Barcelona 1992 268
Francisco-Javier Monclús
15 Sydney 2000 287
Beatriz García
16 Athens 2004 315
Margaret M. Gold
17 Beijing 2008 340
Ian G. Cook and Steven Miles
18 London 2012 359
Graeme Evans
19 Rio de Janeiro 2016 390
John R. Gold
20 Afterword 403
John R. Gold and Margaret M. Gold
References 407
Index 437
OLYMPIC CITIES • ix
Preface
Anyone looking at the second edition of a book published only a few years
previously has every reason to ask why the revisions were necessary. In our case,
an essential part of the rationale lies in the need for updating. Three years on
from when the manuscript of the first edition was delivered (March 2007), we
are now able to reflect on the experience of staging the Summer Games in Beijing
2008 and the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver. Moreover, the relentless onward
movement of the calendar of Olympic and Paralympic festivals means that there
are now further developments that need attention. At the time of writing, the
major structures for the next Summer games in London 2012 are recognizably
taking shape and plans are pressing ahead on two Games that had not yet been
allocated to host cities when the previous edition went to press, namely, the Winter
Games scheduled for Sochi in 2014 and the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro in
2016. The slight change in the book’s title – now extending to 2016 rather than
2012 – reflects this changing situation.
Yet the business of dealing adequately with the multifaceted festivals that
comprise the modern Olympic and Paralympic Games involves far more than
adding new events to the list covered. The Olympics have a remarkable tendency
to become the focus of new debates. In this respect, concerns about environmental
sustainability, security and, in particular, legacy have impacted upon thinking
about the Games and have prompted the staging of innumerable symposia to
discuss emerging problems and shared challenges. Often involving a mixture
of academics and practitioners, these events have stimulated and sometimes
underwritten a further wave of new publications about the Olympics that, at their
best, have helped to move scholarship decisively forward. In addition, there has
been a notable outpouring of new studies about the history of the Olympics and
on topics such as bidding processes, tourism, spectacle, and branding. Under-
standably, therefore, an essential part of the purpose of this new edition has been
to take stock of this new literature and give adequate recognition to its findings.
Having emphasized the need for change, however, it should also be stressed
that the core aim of this book remains precisely the same. In broad outline, it
seeks to draw on the expertise of an international group of authors to examine
comparatively the experience of cities that have hosted the Olympics in the years
from the creation of the modern Games in 1896 through to the present day and
beyond to 2016. As such, it remains a book framed around historical analysis,