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In Rio, the forced eviction process has taken on a militarised ethos, as Police Pacification Units (Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora) try to control a number of the city’s favelas. The neighbourhoods were destroyed and residents removed to the outskirts of the city far from friends, family and places of work. To make way for Beijing’s 2008 Olympic infrastructure, an estimated 1.5m people were forcibly evicted from their homes with minimal compensation.
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When that happens, local populations and communities are often dispersed and displaced. Human rights violationsīuilding new infrastructure in a city means destroying established urban areas. But there’s an even more insidious side-effect which is often overlooked. White elephants are highly-visible reminders that mega-events may not be worth the cost. And Brazil appears destined to repeat the same mistakes, as the country struggles to find a purpose for its 2014 World Cup facilities. The 2010 World Cup in South Africa offers a particularly stark warning: the stadia continue to rot from disuse.
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Montreal, Sydney, Athens, Beijing and Vancouver have all had their share of post-olympics venue failures. Some host cities – such as Barcelona – have made good use of their stadia, but others are replete with white elephants. One of the central challenges of hosting any mega-event is what to do with the new infrastructure after the athletes and tourists have gone. Once cast in the populist light of the 1950s to communicate ideas of democracy, it now aims to attract a different kind of person: the consumption-oriented international tourist. One example is the Estádio Mario Filho (better known as the Maracanã) stadium in Rio, which underwent more than US$500m in renovations ahead of the 2014 World Cup. While improvements to transportation may provide benefits to the populace, these redevelopments only offer hope for increased tourist dollars and a small number of low-paying jobs. Retail, festival, sporting, leisure, hotel and heritage spaces are at the core of this vision. Rather, planners seek to capitalise on urban space by re-imagining the city as a recreational environment – a resource for tourism and consumerism. But arguably, it is the least significant. Before refashioning the urban landscape, planners must know which sites are to be redeveloped, for whom, and to what end.Ĭlearly, catering to the demands of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is one priority. Yet developing the sporting stadia, accommodation and transportation networks to cope with increased numbers of tourists and athletes is anything but straightforward.
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Hosting a mega-event always involves urban renewal and regeneration. Undoubtedly, the most significant cost relates to the (re)development of urban infrastructure. The financial undertaking for such bids – and the subsequent planning and implementation – is nothing short of enormous. In Rio, planned infrastructure developments are set to continue through to 2030. Such legacy promises often promote infrastructure redevelopment, improved transportation systems, economic growth and job creation, projects of urban renewal and regeneration, improved physical activity participation and environmental sustainability.