Thoughts??

 

I was starting to get excited for it - now I feel let down. What were the reasonable anti-olympic arguments?

I don't know if Rio would make a better venue (at time of writing, Rio and Madrid are still considered). From what I heard, the south american games didn't go so well. I do get that the olympics probably should make it to South America sometime.

 

I think it's a shame, I know Obama is catching a lot of grief about it, but I don't think those people realize how much revenue (and jobs) are created because of it.

I think Chicago would be a great place to host them, perhaps one day.

 

I was talking about this with Pat the other day, and we both felt that "one day" may be a ways off it it isn't now. With the president having a lot of ties here, it seems unlikely that there will be a point when we will be more prepared. Maybe they should just start putting some of the (infrastructure, not sporting event) plans into place anyway, and if we wanted to make another bid in the near future, we'd be better set already.

Part of me was actually put-off at the idea of considering it the "American" bid, because then it seemed like it was just yet another attempt for America to try to claim dominance over the rest of the world. While this may or may not be true already, I could see the IOC being turned off by that.

 

Garrison, it was considered the American bid because Chicago was chosen over LA by USOC.

i thought it would have been cool to have the Olympics here, but i would have also been really annoyed by all the people and security and what-not if i still worked in the city by the time 2016 rolled around.

 

I'm thrilled that Chicago/America lost the bid for 2016. What I consider to be "reasonable arguments" follow....

There are limited places where we could actually construct a proper venue for the games. If I remember correctly, the IOC has a policy regarding venue capacity. Their minimum capacity figure is around 80,000. Soldier Field (according to Wikipedia) has a capacity of around 61,000. In order to build something, we would have to develop on the south side, as the north is chalk full of yuppies with very VERY expensive homes. Relocating that group would bankrupt more than just Chicago...

Building on the south side is fine, as people would argue that beautification occurs in the process, thereby making more of Chicago a more desirable place to live. Further, real estate prices would increase. And let's not forget about the job creation...

Unfortunately, the job creation would be short lived.

Infrastructure improvement along with condo/apartment/stadium development would last right up until the games hit the city, and after that, squat. The fact is, the city already has a great deal of unnecessary development and contracting companies losing money hand over hand just trying to unload their speculated investments. Next, banks are unwilling to distribute loans to businesses, as it puts even more toxic assets on their books. They're still trying to unload the foreclosed upon homes and limit the damage they do to themselves post stimulus. I'll get to this later...

We could build a new stadium with an 80,000 capacity, but what do we do with it when the Olympics are gone? We already have 2 baseball stadiums, The United Center, Allstate Arena, Millenium Park, Soldier Field and the McCormick Center. None are being used at full capacity and all of them hold less than 80,000 people. Maintenance and upkeep for a stadium is no joke. If the Cubs and Wrigley Field can find themselves in soup, what would stop the new stadium from going belly up? Finding sponsorship for a stadium of that size would be difficult, as once the Olympics were over, there would be no good reason for any company of any size to continue paying the bills in the building.

Real estate issues. As I mentioned above, we already have a surplus of condos in the city. Building more is not necessarily the answer to anyone's problems unless the new homes are exponentially cheaper than the existing $400K+ condos. A friend of mine is the CFO for a large contracting company in Chicago. In this climate, they've reduced their workforce by 70% and the partners in the firm are all considering working for no salary to keep the doors open. They recently built a couple buildings just blocks from Soldier Field and guaranteed new buyers/investors rental income for the first year of ownership. That's a stupid idea in any market, let alone after 7+ years of prosperity. Home prices cannot keep increasing at a rate beyond 5% per year when most people only receive a 2-3% raise year over year. Not to mention, that 2-3% raise barely offsets inflation... So yeah...this is a bust. I have other friends who saw everyone making a quick buck in real estate and jumped feet first into $400K+ investment properties. Now they're neck deep in debt for a place they can barely find renters for in a market where selling would ensure they'd be over $100,000 in the red. And that's just a single investment. There would definitely be a few people who would cash out by selling when the Olympics came to town...but they're the exception, not the rule.

More on job creation... New small businesses would open up all over the place in areas neighboring the new stadium and real estate. Then after the 2-6 weeks of Olympic hype were over, those businesses would find their bills piling up with fewer and fewer customers. This eventually leads to more people losing money on their own or through a bank...

Now... If we (Chicago) want to do something sustainable, we should look into a few things...

1. Stop going after the quick dollar and leasing all over our street parking and tollway revenue to international companies. Just increase the rates here and employ their booting techniques. Problem solved. If people cannot pay for the boot to be removed within 24 hours of the booting, then move the car to an impound. After a predetermined period of time, just auction that shit off and use that money for the city.

2. Build that long rumored airport in the south suburbs. That would bring immediate jobs during airport construction as well as sustainable jobs at the airport itself. Further, O'Hare and Midway would be less congested, making traveling in and out of Chicago considerably easier for tourists and business travelers.

3. Lose Daley. I'm not convinced this fncktard isn't more outwardly corrupt than any other Illinois politician. I appreciate his bravado from time to time, but the Meigs Field incident was unbelievably retarded. It's like Blagojevich talking about his "golden ticket" on the phone while he must have known he was being investigated. Signing the city's resources up for 99 year leases to Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and every other schmuck that comes'a'knockin' is ridiculous too... You want to balance the budget? Do it like normal people. Stop accepting bribes from the highest bidder for city projects and leaving the citizens to deal with the mess.

I could be wrong about all this... But I fnckin' doubt it.