Vancouver Olympic Nightmare Entirely Avoidable!
Talk about buyer’s remorse! The cost of the 2010 winter games in Vancouver are spiralling out of control. The 2016 Committee says it will only cost $4 billion + to do the larger summer games seven years from now. Can’t you just see that screaming headlines “2016 Games – $10 Billion and Rising.” Wake up, Chicago – cancel this ticket before the city is buried in Olympic sized debt for the next 30 years!
Vancouver is not Chicago. No U.S. Summer Olympics have even approached the madness we’ve seen by London, Athens or Vancouver.
Salt Lake 2002
(financially successful)
Atlanta 1996
(financially successful)
Los Angeles 1984
(financially successful)
Even Los Angeles 1932 and St. Louis 1904 were not in the hole financially either.
Why do you think LA wanted the USOC to choose them for the 2016 bid? Because it brought so much to the city in ’84.
Why did Atlanta’s former mayor come to Chicago touting how much growth and improvement her city experienced because of the Olympics? Because it did.
You can post horror stories from other bid cities all you want, but the fact is Chicago would see so many benefits by hosting an Olympics.
I disagree with Dave. Chicago faces a lot of problems that would NOT get any closer to being resolved via hosting the Olympics(crime and inadequate public transit bus service in parts of Chicago, anyone?), plus the rampant corruption in our city government is ridiculous. Why should we host an event, all because our city’s mayor wants the event to stroke his ego?
All the money that is being discussed to spend for Olympic costs could be much better used to fix long-standing city problems Chicago faces. IMO, it’d be a lot more significant and deserving to see a city(Rio de Janeiro) in a part of the world(South America) that has never had a chance to host any Olympics be awarded the 2016 games. Oh, did I almost forget to mention all the wasteful, insider contracts that will inevitably be awarded(if the Olympics are held here) to favored corporations that are cozy with Illinois state government, Stroger, and Daley?
@Allan: There’s also no evidence that all the problems you list would be exacerbated by the Olympics. Obviously all of these problems exist now, and have for a long time, so connecting them to the Olympics, which are still in the bid stages, is grossly disingenuous.
The truth is that “all the money that is being discussed to spend for Olympic costs” is money that Chicago will get only if we actually win the games. No Olympics = things stay pretty much the same. Olympics = we get a big chunk of money to invest in infrastructure.
As for “wasteful, insider contracts,” those are a problem now as well, Olympics or not. But I believe that sunshine is the best disinfectant, and the Olympics will mean that the whole world will be watching. China got a lot of good publicity from the 2008 games, but there was more attention than ever focused on Tibet and other human-rights issues. If you want to stop corruption, the Olympics will be a great opportunity.
Dave ask yourself this…who on God’s green earth would want to live in this city of feces, rats, and raoches. God I am was never so happy when my company moved me to the west coast. Chicago is a dump and hopefully the IOC chooses Rio. Not only will tax payers of Crook county foot the bill, so will the 6 collaer counties to, much like they footed the bill for the CTA “doomsday” which was used for pensions. Fock Chicago!
Forgive the typos, I am typing in the dark with a sleeping child next to me. Good folks in Chicago, they don’t need higher taxes upon the mountain you pay now.