Olympic Waterfronts: wasted opportunities and lasting legacies

Olympic Waterfronts: wasted opportunities and lasting legacies

Submission ID:

154

Mega-events like the Olympic Games are frequently used as platforms for urban development, creating physical, political, social, and economic legacies. With a clear strategy of city-branding, cities, regions, and countries may use these events to reposition themselves in the global market. Globally, waterfront redevelopment has become a primary mechanism for revitalizing urban spaces, especially through brownfield requalification. The Olympics have not been indifferent to this trend, and over the last decades several important Olympic interventions have rehabilitated waterfronts. Yet, these ‘Olympic Waterfronts’ have emerged in very different urban contexts and resulted in diverse urban, social, and environmental legacies. This paper analyses such waterfronts by evaluating their: economic sustainability; environmental impact; connectivity and accessibility; role in the hosts’ urban and marketing strategies; social impact of the event; visibility/perception of these locations. These are framed in the political and social contexts in which each intervention was carried. Results show that the Olympic waterfront can drastically change the image of the city, greatly contributing to the perceived success of the event’s legacy, and creating new urban centralities. However, the inadequate management in the planning, the delivery and, especially, the legacy stages of the event can compromise this ‘Olympic Effect’. [Palgrave]

Preferred Track

1. Mega-events and mega-projects: trends and demands

Second Preferred Track

9. The Syndrome of Grand Projects: contamination processes between North-South, West-East, Global-Local