Harry H. Hiller

Mega-events, Urban Boosterism and Growth Strategies: An Analysis of the Objectives and Legitimations of the Cape Town 2004 Olympic Bid

Mega-events are short-term high-profile events like Olympics and World Fairs that always have a significant urban impact. They re-prioritize urban agendas, create post-event usage debates, often stimulate urban redevelopment, and are instruments of boosterist ideologies promoting economic growth. While mega-events have normally been the preserve of industrial/postindustrial cities, the bid for the 2004 Olympics by Cape Town, South Africa represented the first bid from Africa, and the most successful bid to date from a developing country. The unique theme of the Cape Town bid was human/urban development - a contradiction given the elitist and commercial nature of mega-events - and yet a direct response to problems created by the apartheid city. The developmental aspects of the Cape Town bid are assessed in their South African context in order to ascertain whether development was only a legitimation for business interests (or growth machines) or whether and how the mega-event would contribute to urban restructuring. It is concluded that the bid represented a form of urban/national boosterism that repositioned Cape Town and South African interests in the global economy - particularly relevant given its previous apartheid pariah status. As a pro-growth strategy advocated by political and economic elites, the Olympic bid was less important as a sporting event at the grassroots than as a symbol of expectations of economic betterment. Whether mega-events like the Olympics can carry such far-reaching objectives within their more specific mandates is a matter for further reflection. Copyright Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000.

Assessing the Impact of Mega-Events: A Linkage Model

Mega-events are usually assessed in terms of the economic impact of the event itself with little attention given to the event as part of a broader process that can be investigated longitudinally. An adapted political economy model is proposed (because the mega-event is seen as essentially an economic initiative) that distinguishes three kinds of linkages. Forward linkages refer to the effects caused by the event itself. Backward linkages refer to the powerful background objectives which justify or rationalise the event. Parallel linkages are side-effects which are residual to the event itself and not directly under the control of event organisers. This longitudinal approach also distinguishes between pre-event, eventand post-eventimpacts so that unintended and unanticipated consequences can be identified. The model is applied to the issue of displacement as a parallel linkage and to other issues of housing and impacts on neighboring communities to the mega-event site.Itis concluded that impact assessment ...

Post-event Outcomes and the Post-modern Turn: The Olympics and Urban Transformations

Abstract The Olympics are analysed from an urban perspective as an event that has an impact on cities beyond sport. The focus of the paper is on post-event outcomes and particularly on Olympic-related facilities and how they are used once the Olympics are over. The 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics serves as the primary illustration of the processes described. The transformation of the urban order is discussed in terms of the post-modern turn and it is shown how the Olympics are affected by and contributes to the support of the shift toward leisure consumption as a dominant theme in the new urban symbolic economy. Issues such as place marketing, urban restructuring, urban regionalization, surveillance, and social exclusion are also related to post-Olympic outcomes.

The Urban Transformation of a Landmark Event The 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics

The urban impact of such landmark events as Olympics and worlds fairs usually has been evaluated by focusing on aspects of urban renewal or planning, and they usually are understood as representative of elitist interests because of the resulting visibility and economic growth. Examining the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics with a sociological focus reveals that through an interactive process involving urban residents, this elitist event became a more populist urban festival. The result is a new perspective on the urban meaning of such landmark events, illustrating that positive emotions can be sustained in cities, in contrast to the usual negative emotions that are produced by urban problems.

Conventions as mega-events: A new model for convention-host city relationships

Abstract Conventions represent a special form of tourism with a high degree of ecological differentiation from the host society. The encapsulation of conventioneers in highly planned convention activity creates an intrusion-reaction response from the host city - particularly when the convention reaches a size threshold that makes it a mega-event. Conventions can be analytically distinguished from conferences and the characteristics of conventions as mega-events can be identified. In place of the intrusion-reaction model, an interactive-opportunity model is proposed through the use of case studies. A sociological perspective demonstrates how interaction benefits (rather than merely economic benefits) can transform the convention-host city relationship.

Public opinion in host Olympic cities: the case of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games.

Olympic analyses typically depend heavily on perspectives built from macro processes characteristically rooted in political economy. Using survey data of city residents gathered at six different points in time during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, this article proposes a focus on what happens within the host city during the Games. While the Olympics were the centre of much debate and controversy before the Games, the data show that attitudes towards the Games became much more favorable thereby providing hard evidence that the Olympics had an experiential urban impact. Regression models revealed that attending free unticketed events and supporting the Liberal party in the last provincial election were the best predictors of positive attitudes towards the Games. It is concluded that the Olympics represent a form of public policy which generates responses related to socio-political factors while also being an interactional event transforming local attitudes towards the Games.

Humor and hostility: A neglected aspect of social movement analysis

Most research on social movements has focused on their chronology and structure, and on the social conflict generated by collective attempts to bring about or thwart change. The seriousness and intensity of such activity have led sociologists to ignore the lighter side of social movements. Humor is an important means of communication and in this article it is shown to be intimately related to conflict in social movements. A four-cell model of “conflict humor” is proposed. The relationship between humor and social movements is demonstrated in a brief case study of the Western Canadian separatist movement.

The psycho-social impact of the Olympics as urban festival: a leisure perspective

Typical impact assessments of mega-events such as the Olympics focus on economic and tourism indicators or urban regeneration efforts. This paper instead focuses on the perceptions and attitudes of local residents about the mega-event and how it impacts them. Using poll data gathered in relation to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games and the 2012 London Summer Olympics, it is shown how attitudes shift over time and, above all, how the Games-time experience of living in a host city impacts resident’s attitudes towards the Games. It is argued that the Olympics creates both new leisure time and leisure spaces in the host city that produces psycho-social effects, whereby the event is viewed more positively and almost independent of perceptions of economic benefits. The creation of a festival atmosphere affects the public mood and surprisingly seems to at least somewhat overwhelm fiscal issues and other controversies.

Airports as Borderlands: American Preclearance and Transitional Spaces in Canada

Abstract Airport preclearance is a unique mechanism in transborder relations between Canada and the United States that allows airline passengers to clear customs and immigration before boarding the aircraft rather than upon arrival at the destination. Preclearance is explained in relation to the changing nature of border security in the context of Canadian‐American relations, bilateral air policies, and the structural features of the two societies. However, it is argued that the primary significance of preclearance is that it provides unique evidence of how airports themselves are the new borders of transnational interaction by deterritorializing national boundaries. Preclearance is analyzed in three modes: as a mechanism facilitating both intersocietal integration and symbolic difference concurrently, as a procedure occurring in a building with structural spaces possessing different meanings, and as a subjective experience of travelers and workers within the airport.

Public Opinion in Olympic Cities: From Bidding to Retrospection:

Whereas traditionally hosting the Olympics was viewed as a top-down decision with little public input, public opinion is becoming more important in assessing and evaluating the merits of hosting the Games. Using bid documents from 2010 to 2020, the formal role that public opinion officially plays in the bid phase following the International Olympic Committee (IOC) procedures is examined. Public opinion in the preparation stage is reviewed, which demonstrates the problem of seeking simple declarations of support (Yes/No) that obfuscate important local issues (cost, traffic, urban priorities). Shifts in public opinion during the Games themselves, as well as one and four years after the Games, provide a new perspective on resident attitudes. Using retrospective data from Vancouver 2010 and London 2012, multivariate analysis demonstrates that participation in Olympic-related events (sporting and nonsporting) was the most important predictor of attitudes toward the Games and that concerns over costs were the only concerns that were justified.