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Toronto 2024 Olympic Bid (Dead)

Really, do you speak for everyone? Maybe L.A. is where it's at and you guys are a bunch of losers. Then I'll move to L.A.. Maybe Toronto is incapable of pulling off a successful Olympics.
 
I think that Toronto would be an excellent and fully capable Olympic host. That said I would have to say that I don't support a bid at this time. I think Toronto still has some maturing to do and there is a positive momentum of organic growth in the city that needs to play itself out without Olympic disruption. 2024 isn't actually that far away.

I would like civic leaders to not pursue this for another decade and re-evaluate the situation around 2025. By then many of the current infrastructure projects will be complete and our newly densified central district and waterfront will be more mature and lively. Also, hopefully much of the central city will be a little less shabby as the turn-over in property ownership and trend of public space rejuvenation will continue it's virtuous cycle of striving for higher standards.
 
Euphoria said:
I'd actually like to hear your vision for an Olympic bid, animatronic. You seem pretty savvy. What would you like to see?
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I thought about your question, but there's really no scenario that would make bidding preferable to not bidding - and that's including a hypothetical situation where there are no other bidders and we are allowed to re-use all the Pan Am venues without modification.

It all boils down to the Host City Contract. If I were on council or the city was my client there is no way that I could recommend signing the agreement. The entire document is structured to funnel money out of the Host city/country and into the hands of the IOC and NOCs, while placing all costs and risks in the hands of the host city. The IOC even takes a 5-15% cut of commemorative stamps and coins, which means the host country literally prints money for the IOC. We wouldn't even be allowed to sue the IOC if anything went wrong, and if anyone else sues the IOC we need to pay their bills.

We don't need the new sports facilities that would be built, while improvements to transit and the Port Lands could be made much more cost-effectively outside the Olympic framework.

Therefore, my vision for an Olympic bid would be a flaming piece of garbage foisted on us by a tone-deaf and self-interested bidding group, one that so offends Torontonians we send them packing and put the whole crazed notion of mega-events to bed for at least a generation. By that point the Olympics will probably have imploded under their own self-gravitas. On the upshot, this whole mess would unite Torontonians around the need for urban renewal and we would actually elect politicians who can tie their own shoes.
 
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Really, animatronic? I actually would love to hear your vision of the city. I think you're on top of some shit. Let's hear your vision.
 
TrickyRicky said:
I think that Toronto would be an excellent and fully capable Olympic host. That said I would have to say that I don't support a bid at this time. I think Toronto still has some maturing to do and there is a positive momentum of organic growth in the city that needs to play itself out without Olympic disruption. 2024 isn't actually that far away.

I would like civic leaders to not pursue this for another decade and re-evaluate the situation around 2025. By then many of the current infrastructure projects will be complete and our newly densified central district and waterfront will be more mature and lively. Also, hopefully much of the central city will be a little less shabby as the turn-over in property ownership and trend of public space rejuvenation will continue it's virtuous cycle of striving for higher standards.
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I agree. I don't mind Toronto bidding for the Olympics...but not now
 
Euphoria said:
Really, animatronic? I actually would love to hear your vision of the city. I think you're on top of some shit. Let's hear your vision.
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Given the fact that you propose spending between $15 and $25 billion on a sporting extravaganza, I think the onus is on you to give a data-driven rationale of why this would be a net benefit to the city, where exactly the money is going to come from, and what exactly it will be spent on. Because "Hosting the Olympics will make Toronto one of the world's most influential cities!" isn't verifiable or nearly specific enough.
 
Euphoria said:
Really, animatronic? I actually would love to hear your vision of the city. I think you're on top of some shit. Let's hear your vision.
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You'd like an alternate vision for the city?

Our strength is our neighbourhoods. That's what makes us unique and what should be promoted. We can do this by setting a goal of making Toronto the most walkable medium-density city in the world. We can accomplish this by:

1. Downtown/inner city
- Encourage/force four-story construction along major streets, rising to 6 stories above subway/LRT stations
- Pull all car traffic off Yonge St. between the lake and Bloor, replacing it with a La Rambla-style pedestrian/bike street w/morning and evening delivery access
- Cover a portion of Yonge, say between College and Wellesley so it's usable in the winter
- Turn King St. into a streetcar/bike route similar to 7th Ave SW in Calgary
- Relax liquor laws and encourage streetside patios
- Build a multi-use Port Lands neighbourhood
- Allow condos in Ontario Place
- Encourage multi-use density at Yonge & Eglinton

2. Exurbs
- Exurbs need walkable neighbourhoods like downtown
- Tear down every strip mall in Scarborough, Etobicoke and North York, replacing them with multi-story mixed use dwellings
- Where full walkability isn't practical, encourage pedestrian-friendly mixed use hubs like the proposed Humbertown redevelopment
- Increase the number of rec centres and libraries
- Get serious about turning North York Centre into a second downtown. Sell off Metro Hall and move city employees up to MLS. Encourage density
- Expand bike lanes

3. Transit
- Cancel the Scarborough Subway and SmartTrack
- Extend Eglinton Connects through to STC
- Build the LRT on Finch + one N-S route in Scarborough
- Switch to timed transfers to encourage stopping en route
- Make the subway free south of Bloor
- Make the subway free before 7:30am

4. Arts & Culture
- Toronto already has the second-largest music scene in NA - this has a huge tourist potential and should be encouraged
- Use zoning and incentives to build small-medium performance venues throughout the city
- Encourage conversion of surplus churches into multi-use community service and performance spaces

5. Professional Sports
- Lease waterfront land to the Jays so they can build a 35,000-seat jewel box stadium
- If NFL wants to come to Toronto, force them to rebuild/retrofit Skydome or go up to Woodbine
- Only public support for a professional team would be an LRT to the new location(s)

6. Tourism
- We need more business conventions and more medium-sized family attractions
- Rebuild MTCC to attract larger conventions
- Lease space in the Port Lands / Ontario Place / Ex for a Ripley's-sized tourist attraction
- Add 2-3 more Pride/Caribana-sized events. One in the Spring and one early Summer

7. Business
- Keep corporate taxes low
- Work with Prov/Feds to build a MaRS-style incubator in North York

8. Grand gesture / big idea
- Don't need one

Most of this is on the books or easily achievable. It doesn't require massive central planning and creates incentives for business. In the long run this would be much more effective than hosting a Games.
 
TrickyRicky said:
I think that Toronto would be an excellent and fully capable Olympic host. That said I would have to say that I don't support a bid at this time. I think Toronto still has some maturing to do and there is a positive momentum of organic growth in the city that needs to play itself out without Olympic disruption.
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TrickyRicky, would you elaborate a little on what you are referring to as 'organic growth'? A number of high profile beautification, revitalization, development and infrastructure projects have come to fruition in Toronto recently, which is fantastic, but I feel this may distort the bigger picture. The PanAms were actually the catalyst for much of this and so a lot of what you may perceive as organic really isn't. Yes, we've seen some great private BIA initiatives too but these really just skim the surface of the bigger types of issues the PanAms - or Olympics potentially - would address.

What's more, even if there is an argument to be made that there is real 'organic growth' momentum happening in this city, it is difficult to deny that much of this growth is far too often incredibly irresponsible and costly for being largely politically motivated. Reading the following article it struck me how even the well-intentioned among city planners have sunk into this same quagmire, Jean-Pierre Boutros is referring to his former boss, Karen Stintz, and the about-face she made regarding the boondoggle subway line to Scarborough:

Boutros was chiefly referring to the Scarborough Subway Extension and the way his ex-boss fought for that unnecessary, costly piece of infrastructure for the sake of her impending mayoral bid, contrary to her own earlier and apparently principled position that a light-rail line – that would run 30 per cent further for half the cost, with twice as many stations within walking distance of twice as many people – made far greater sense [...] Stintz may not have been elected mayor, but we've been left with the legacy of her ambition. And not only did mayoral victor John Tory decide a subway would still be the way to go, he had some new ideas of his own.
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https://nowtoronto.com/news/train-wreck/​

I probably don't need to remind anyone that this 'unnecessary' piece of infrastructure is going to cost the Toronto taxpayer close to $4billion. Worse, it will become even more unnecessary if Toronto's other transit boondoggle, SmartTrack, is pushed through by Tory:

Council's approved alignment for the Scarborough Subway Extension [...] runs up McCowan from Eglinton to Sheppard. But the existing GO corridor that SmartTrack would use is just 2.1 kilometres to the west, and moving the subway farther away would, as the Star has explored, add hundreds of millions to its cost and take it through an even lower-density area.
[...]
"You can't fund SmartTrack, and justify SmartTrack, and the Scarborough subway at the same time. You just can't," says Boutros. "Not fiscally, not operationally. So at some point, [Mayor Tory's] gonna have to fish or cut bait on this."
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https://nowtoronto.com/news/train-wreck/​

This is also to be funded by city taxpayers at a cost of $6 to $8billion, and most of the plan - as it is currently conceived at least - will not deliver adequate service levels or provide any relief for the Yonge Line (which isn't even being addressed).

The point here being that we are looking at a total of $12 billion tax dollars for bad transit plans. This is not good organic growth!

In short, we need saving from ourselves, and a new election won't do it given the political urban/suburban polarization that undermines policy in Toronto, and has for decades now. A mega international event such as an Olympics games would have the opposite effect, generating funding and thereby freeing up the infrastructure plans from the politics given that there are no voters to pander to for the money. Oversight from upper levels of government would ensure the right plans.

So, based on this alone you can subtract $12billion from the cost of the games because this it what we would be saving right off the bat in getting the plans the city needs rather than the plans that our politicians need to get re-elected.










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Coming back to a more positive discussion and the idea that 'hallmark events' do drive urban development and revitalization the article, 'Post-Event Outcomes and the Post-Modern Turn: The Olympics and Urban Transformation' http://people.ucalgary.ca/~hiller/pdfs/Urban_Transformations.pdf makes the case that this is even more critical for cities in the post-industrial age, a context in which cities, having lost their prime manufacturing/industrial bases, are having to turn more and more towards a) tourism and the service sectors, and b) the creative and tech' industries. These are the globally competitive industries that drive employment and growth now... the industries which just happen to co-incide with what the anti-games cabal would like to dismiss as the 'intangible' benefits of an Olympics games. In fact, it is quite the opposite. In fact, in bidding for a games many of the word's cities are deliberately investing in their global brands as drivers of these industries, as surely as they are bidding for the arguably more tangible investments in infrastructure and development. In fact, it all ties in together where in the competition for tourists, new business and start-ups, and attracting a dynamic and desirable, quality workforce cities must make themselves appealing and then be able to broadcast this appeal. What better way to do this than with a hallmark international event?

The globalization of the economy has meant that cities are now part of a hierarchy of urban places in which power flows from global cities which serve as command centres and peripheral cities struggle for a significant place within the global urban hierarchy. Of particular importance is the emergence of what has been called the "entrepreneurial city" in which coalitions of urban elites unite to promote the economic development of their city (Harvey, 1988; Hall & Hubbard, 1.998). Elite coalitions involve politicians, planners, real estate developers and business leaders attempting to make their cities more competitive by attracting new sources of funding and direct investment to support various forms of business development and employment creation, as well as to improve the built environment either for its own sake or to change the image of a city. Globalization therefore means greater intercity competition, both nationally and internationally, in which entrepreneurial cities seek a competitive edge.

The role that the Olympics play in place marketing is well known but usually is acknowledged more indirectly ('Whitson & Maclntosh, 1996; Roche, 2000). The emphasis in presentations to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is usually on the city's technical competencies to host the Olympics whereas the rationales presented to local and national constituencies emphasizes spinoff effects such as employment creation (often not explicitly acknowledged as short term), tax revenues and tourism develop- ment. But lurking not far behind these economic justifications is the global publicity given to the host city that usually results in a concerted public relations effort to market and massage the image of the city throughout the various phases of the Olympic cycle. Urban elite coalitions visualize the Olympics as an opportunity to enhance and broaden the profile of the city not iust for its "demonstration effects" (i.e. to demonstrate that the city has the capacity or ability to host such an event) but to "showcase" the city as an attractive place for investment. In some cases, this is public investment for infrastructural change from higher levels of government (which will be discussed below. but a central goal is also to make the city attractive as a place for private investment, including from international sources (Searle, 2003, p. 125). Cities bidding from developing countries or countries wishing to redefine their global position have been especially attracted to the Olympics for this reason. The Olympics then becomes a tool in the more general goal of greater economic development as represented by urban boosterism (Smyth, 1994). This role of the Olympics has become particularly important in a global economy characterized by more competition between cities. Presumably, then, the ability to mobilize capital for Olympic infrastructure is considered to be symbolic of a city's capacity to compete with other cities by taking on such a large-scale multi-faceted project. But it is not just the Olympic facilities themselves that are important but the supporting infrastructure of transportation, housing and leisure activities that must be upgraded (discussed below) in order to enhance the city's environment and its global appeal.
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http://people.ucalgary.ca/~hiller/pdfs/Urban_Transformations.pdf​

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This article reflects newer academic thinking about hosting a mega event, and the post-Barcelona urban motivations. It's why already established cities such as London and Paris and Chicago vie for the games, seeking to maintain their edge long term into the future, and recognizing that this requires ongoing investments. This is what anti-games bean-counters conveniently overlook. They want to circle the wagons, smugly and nihilistically deconstructing any grand project visions, doing nothing while praying for political miracles as the rest of the world passes us by. It's city planning done by defiant ostriches, heads in the sand and butts in the air.
 
Tewder said:
This is what anti-games bean-counters conveniently overlook. They want to circle the wagons, smugly and nihilistically deconstructing any grand project visions, doing nothing while praying for political miracles as the rest of the world passes us by. It's city planning done by defiant ostriches, heads in the sand and butts in the air.
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You just said you wanted a more positive discussion. Meaningless drivel like that last paragraph isn't very constructive.
 
animatronic said:
Deciding as a city to unite around a "no thanks" to the IOC would also be a very powerful tool for city building. In particular it would force politicians to stop chasing after shiny objects and get down to work.
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Because that worked oh so well in the late 80s for the 96? In fact, it's arguable that politicians are increasingly tied to the election cycle since then and require deliverables within that timeframe.

AoD
 
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Euphoria said:
Really, do you speak for everyone? Maybe L.A. is where it's at and you guys are a bunch of losers. Then I'll move to L.A.. Maybe Toronto is incapable of pulling off a successful Olympics.
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Toronto is perfectly capable of hosting a successful Olympics.

It is also capable of building a transit system which is efficient and has full city coverage. We choose not to do this.

Toronto is still afraid of failure, so in many cases we opt not to try.
 
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