Could the Olympics see Chicago through the recession?

Mayor Daley and Chicago 2016 say the 2016 Olympics are just the stimulus Chicago needs to ride out the current economic recession, according to a story in today's New York Times:

"To hear Ms. [Lori] Healey and other bid leaders tell it, there is no downside. If the International Olympics Committee were to choose Chicago over Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo on Oct. 2, advocates predict the Games would not only break even but would also make money (as have, they say, earlier Olympics in the United States), generate more than $22 billion in indirect economic impact on the city and create $1 billion in new tax revenue. Many of the sites needed for the events would not require construction because they already exist."

I've met Chicagoans who agree with Healey's statement, and others who hear Chicago 2016 officials speak and instinctively clutch their pocketbooks tighter.

George Tolley, prof. emeritus of economics at the University of Chicago, is one South Sider who is still hesitant to say that Chicago will not have to draw from tax dollars to finance the bid.

"I don’t know what [Daley] really has in mind...he might be able to line up enough commitments from the private sector, if they're willing to commit themselves in a legally binding way," he said. But Daley "still has quite a bit of time to figure it out."

Butler Adams, a resident of Woodlawn, just southeast of the proposed Olympic Stadium and Aquatic Center sites, has been optimistic of the bid from early on—and his support remains strong, despite the weakened economy.

"You’ve got to spend money to make money. Its like an investment. If you put enough heart and spirit into that stock, there’s a greater chance you’ll be a beneficiary," he said.

Adams would like to see the city prove naysayers—and the groundswell of opposition that has formed in response to Mayor Daley's promise that Chicago will cover all potential losses for the International Olympic Committee—wrong.

"Chicago held the 1933 World’s Fair during the Great Depression, and it was so successful it was held over to another year. That could happen again."


UPDATE: Chicago isn't the only city rethinking its Olympic dreams in the face of an economic downturn; according to BBC News, London may move some 2012 Olympics venues to stay within its approximately $10 billion budget

Turnout is low among Washington Park residents at latest Olympics planning meeting

Some Chicagoans are eager to help Chicago 2016 plan for the Olympic bid, but Washington Park has few representatives at community meetings

Close to 60 Chicagoans debated the merits of plans for Washington Park in Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid Saturday morning at the third Washington Park Olympic Venue Legacy meeting.

Despite the high turnout from residents of Hyde Park, Kenwood and a few North Side communities, Cecilia Butler, president of the Washington Park Advisory Council, was concerned that most of the attendees were not from Washington Park proper—the neighborhood just west of the park that expects to see substantial re-developments should Chicago win the bid.

“As a community resident and an active member of my park, I am somewhat disturbed…We have a lot of people in this room talking about this park who don’t live here.” Butler said in her opening remarks to the group. “Think about that, how would you like it if some people came to your community and talked on your behalf? Make sure you are an active user of this park before you feel like making decisions about it.”

Butler said in an interview that she estimates Washington Park residents accounted for no more than one quarter to one third of the meeting’s members, who came to discuss plans for temporary and permanent changes to the park and recommend planning improvements to the Chicago 2016 committee.

“I’m not so concerned about the Olympics in the park. No. I’m concerned for that community west of the park that will be really affected; the people who use this park and drive through it… the people who live on Cottage Grove,” she said. “Where are they?”

But Arnold Randall, Chicago 2016’s director of neighborhood outreach, who led the meeting, held at the Washington Park Refectory, 55th and King Drive, insisted that every opinion counted—not just residents of Washington Park.

“I think it’s important to stress that a lot of the people who come to these meetings use the park every day,” he said. “[Chicago 2016] thinks it’s important to hear what everybody has to say about it …from a community perspective.”

Butler said that Chicago 2016 has so far addressed most of the issues identified by her Council, which issued a “26-Point Plan” for how it thinks the Games should be operated. But the WPAC is still waiting for the committee to clarify what will happen to the local cricket and soccer teams who play in the park, and how soon park roads would be closed to through traffic after construction begins. WPAC supports the bid, Butler said, but only if Chicago 2016 meets all of their demands, which include, “Building trade contracts and On-the-Job training programs for the African-American community,” and a stipulation that re-located local sports teams be able to have their user fees at other recreational sites eliminated or reduced.

During the meeting, Randall emphasized the importance of community support for Chicago 2016’s plans, which include building a collapsible stadium and an aquatic center with four Olympic-sized pools, but did not distinguish between attendees from inside and outside Washington Park. According to Randall, the purpose of the meeting’s presentation and break-out sessions was foremost to gain input from residents about what structures should ideally remain in the park after the Games, and where they should go.

The possibilities include relocating three of the four swimming pools to other park districts while leaving the fourth in Washington Park for public use and to complement the already-existing Dyett community pool, he said; Chicago 2016 is also considering leaving behind a down-sized version of the Olympic stadium with 25 to 35 hundred seats to be used for festivals and public gatherings.

Randall and spokespeople for the Chicago Park District distributed worksheets to the collection of nearly one-dozen breakout session groups, and asked them to describe how they envision the Aquatic Center and stadium's legacies in the Park after the Games. Chicago 2016 officials later collected and recorded the groups’ recommendations into a power-point presentation.

Jonathan Fine, executive director of Preservation Chicago, a North Side-based advocacy group, lead his breakout session group. “We reject the proposal to build an Olympic stadium in Washington Park, and recommend that Chicago 2016 find an alternative venue,” Fine read from his sheet. Other members of the group, all hailing from Hyde Park, North Kenwood or Bronzeville, debated whether or not that message was too strong.

But Kublai Toure, who sat at a neighboring table, was less conflicted. “As a black man who has lived in this community for over 50 years, I’m very concerned about my people being displaced,” he said. “There’s a lot of elderly people still in the community who have fixed incomes, and [the economic changes the Olympics might bring] create a problem for them. We have no confidence in this city government whatsoever.”

Toure, who lives just north of the park on Grand Boulevard and acts as executive director of the neighborhood advocacy group Amer-I-Can Illinois, said he did not come to the planning meeting expecting to sway Chicago 2016 in any direction. “I think it’s a done deal—I didn’t get anything out of the meeting. I just wanted to let them know that there’s a lot of people who feel like I do.”

Madiem Kawa, another Washington Park resident, speculated that poor advertising might be responsible for the low attendance of local community members. Despite subscribing to the email list-host of her district’s alderman, Willie Cochran, Kawa did not learn about the planning meeting until she attended an un-related community meeting in Jackson Park.

Kawa is the volunteer stewardess of Washington Park’s nature areas, and leads volunteer programs in the park for the Chicago Park District. “They hold this meeting on one of my [volunteer group’s] regular work days,” she said. “We can’t normally attend the meetings unless they change the date or time.”

Olympics News Roundup: 7/22

*The city's biggest summer music festival, Lollapalooza, will show its support for the Olympic bid by displaying Chicago 2016 banner on the main stage.

*President Obama is working overtime to promote Chicago's bid to African delegates of the International Olympic Committee, a Nigerian paper reports.

*Olympics Movement followers at Around the Rings support Chicago's decision to create three U.S. Tennis Association Regional Training Centers because of their potential to be used by local youth.

South Side community members express skepticism at latest forum on 2016 Olympics

Some South Shore neighborhood residents were in no mood to play games with Chicago 2016 on Wednesday night at the South Shore Cultural Center.

Despite a slick multi-media presentation from the bid committee, complete with a virtual tour of the city’s potential Olympic venues, skepticism was high among the South Shore crowd, which filled the Cultural Center’s ballroom for the latest community forum on the bid.


At the meeting, the fifth to be hosted by Chicago 2016 in the wake of rising concerns over how the city will pay for the bid, Chairman Pat Ryan and President Lori Healy promised that the Games could only benefit the lakefront community. And as Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th Ward) noted in her opening remarks, City Hall and the Chicago Park District were responsible for renovating the spacious, turn–of-the-century country club—and would be equally attentive to other community needs should Chicago win the bid.



Some residents of the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th wards arrived early for the Chicago 2016 community forum, which filled the recently renovated South Shore Cultural Center almost to capacity on Wed. evening

Community members nonetheless lobbed questions and criticism during the Q&A concerning tax-money, displacement, and whether or not they could trust the committee. The seated crowd chanted at the moderators at one point to return the microphone to a man who tried to ask a negative follow-up question about how the bid will be funded.

Chicago 2016 officials repeated at length throughout the evening that their organization was receiving no public funding, and had little connection to Mayor Richard Daley.

“To say that this money will be diverted from other programs is a false choice,” Ryan said. The $4.8 billion pledged to the bid “only comes in to play if we win.”

“We are very fortunate that we have the lakefront, that we have the United Center,” Ryan said, arguing that such existing resources should reduce the amount of additional investment needed for the Games. “I want to be clear that we do not need to acquire any land for our venue plan. There will be no displacement of city residents through this plan.”

Even so, protestors turned out from No Games Chicago and Save Michael Reese Hospital, both oppositions groups formed around the bid, soliciting attendees as they entered the center, located at 7059 S South Shore Dr. Members of Housing Bronzeville also stood around the entrance to the Center’s lobby with their leader, Bob Gannett. They voiced concerns that housing prices in Bronzeville, a South Side neighborhood near the proposed site of the 2016 Olympic Village, could rise if the bid succeeds.

“We’ve been working on [bringing affordable housing to Bronzeville] for five years now, so our concerns are not just something that sprung up because of the Olympics,” said Gannett, a community organizer and director of the Institute for Community Empowerment. Nonetheless, he said Housing Bronzeville will be attending every community planning meeting to express worries about how the Olympics might displace current Bronzeville residents and make the historic community even less affordable.

“We want to tell [Chicago 2016] that they need to step up and listen to the concerns of the community,” he added. “And Chicago 2016 should use their influence with the city of Chicago to get the city to respond—but that’s a stronger nut to crack.”

Attendees were no less critical inside the meeting hall:

“I just want to say this city doesn’t belong to the 2016 bid committee,” said one attendee, who identified herself only as Rhoda, during the Q&A. “If we wanted to go out and use the land, we would have to go out and pay fees.”

Other protestors passed out No Games Chicago stickers, and carried banners with the opposition group’s slogan, “No Blank Check,” but declined to be identified as part of No Games Chicago.

Local critics of the bid aren’t taking into account the amenities and commerce it will bring to the South Side, according to Shirley Newsome, who represents the 4th Ward (Hyde Park and North Kenwood) on Chicago 2016’s bid committee.

“There’s the idea of having an actual performance venue in Washington Park—something that their advisory council has been trying to get for years; the idea of improved infrastructure; funding for security during the Games [from the federal government],” she said.

Newsome also cited job training as another perk of the Games. “We’re preparing people for employment pre and post Olympic Games. These jobs will be in services, professional sectors, any number of areas—not just construction, because we all know those jobs are temporary.”

Newsome said she is perplexed by the outcry from organizations like Housing Bronzeville, and others who fear the Olympics will displace the South Side’s poorer residents. “I’m trying to figure out where [people would be displaced from]. No people live at Michael Reese. No people live in Washington Park. No people live on the lakefront.” And as for housing prices going up, “the community’s been going through gentrification for the past ten years already,” she said. “That’s nothing new.”




Long-time Hyde Park Resident Joni Jackson is excited about the bid, but wary of Chicago 2016's message

Joni Jackson, one attendee, said she would like to acknowledge the bid’s positives, like increased funding to improve transit and parks, but is most concerned about the economic impact on taxpayers – an issue she feels the bid committee has not sufficiently addressed.

“We are currently facing the highest sales tax in the country,” she said. “I love living in the Chicago area, and I would like to be able to remain here.”

Jackson, a graduate of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and educator from Hyde Park, said she came to the meeting to hear Chicago 2016 answer tough questions from community members. “I saw news snippets of the past meeting [at McKinley Park] and it didn’t appear that [Chicago 2016] was answering questions at all,” she said on her way out of the meeting. “I would love to believe what they’re saying but I don’t. I’m highly skeptical.”

Additional Coverage of the community forum: More Chicagoans say no to Olympics at the Examiner.

Olympics News Roundup (7/9)

*Mayor Richard Daley has a response for opponents of the Olympic bid: "If people keep throwing darts at it, maybe [Chicago] will not get it." Who exactly has been throwing darts? Daley isn't sure, but he told a Chicago Sun-Times reporter: "I would never bankrupt the city of Chicago."

And Chicago 2016 has launched a plan to host meetings about the Olympic bid in all of the city's 50 wards to foster support. (Check back here for coverage of some of the upcoming South Side planning meetings)...


...But Daley may have more to worry about than citizens grumbling, the Chicago Tribune reports: TV rights squabble may hurt Chicago's bid

The Uninvited Guest

University of Chicago sports economist Allen Sanderson talks about your tax dollars, Olympic stadiums, and what makes Chicago a bad party host

Rachel Cromidas: You and others have argued that the city’s financial plans for the 2016 Olympic bid will put taxpayers “on the hook” for more money than the city has. Could you unpack what costs the Olympics will place on the city if Chicago gets the bid?

Allen Sanderson: The budget of building the Olympic Village, stadium, tennis courts, swimming pool, and whatever else, plus the operating budget, is at $4.8 billion dollars now. That’s what it will cost to build the facilities and have the two month-long Olympic and Para-Olympic Games. The U.S. government will largely pick up the security costs, which will probably be huge because this the first Olympic games on American soil since 9/11. If we end up spending the $4.8 billion dollars, the city would get some fraction in ticket revenues, sales taxes, and a slice of the broadcasting pie. This means there is enough potential revenue to cover $4.8 billion dollars.

But the Chicago 2016 has also provided a guarantee. [The committee] says that if we can’t recover the expenditures, we have guaranteed the [International Olympic Committee] that we will cover all losses. This means that the taxpayers or the city or the state are on the hook—it’s not like the U.S. government or [Mayor Richard Daley] has put up their own money. We’re liable.

The Mayor let the cat out of the bag in Switzerland [when he announced that the city will sign the IOC’s host cities agreement]. But this was not new news. If a city really wants to be viable it has to sign this contract that says, “You are 100 percent liable for any budget deficits.” So now that’s unlimited exposure for Chicago. If we spend $4.8 billion dollars, will we be able to cover it? Yeah, I think so. If we spend $5.8, will we still be able to? Yup. The problem is, what if we don’t spend $4.8, but $14.8, or $24.8 [billion]? If that happens, Chicago or IL taxpayers will be advised to get out of state and take up residence somewhere else.



Allen Sanderson discusses the city's 2016 Olympic bid in his office amidst paraphernalia from past Games

RC: Do you think it will likely cost the city more than $4.8 billion to host the Games?

AS: Athens, Greece had a huge problem because they estimated it would cost $4 or $5 billion [to host the summer Games] and depending on how one counts, they spent between $20 and $25[billion] . London will spend over $20 billion. Beijing spent $45 [billion]. The mayor, or Mr. Ryan will say that Athens wanted to build a transportation system, London wanted to redo the whole East End…But so do we. The way cities get in trouble is that you can’t just stop spending money, because there are special interest groups all over the place—every construction unit, developer, every printer and alderman in town.

If you build a rail-line or a housing structure, it will last for 50 years. The Olympics lasts for two months. [Chicago] is letting this short-term project drive long-term, capital investments. Could we use more affordable housing, and more public transportation? Yes. But we should ask what makes [sense] for the city of Chicago in kind of a Burnham Plan sense, in terms of parks, recreation, transit, and then say “Oh, by the way, we’re having this party in the summer of 2016.” But instead of fitting the “party” into our long-term plans, Chicago is saying “We’re going to have a party in the summer of 2016. Now how can we reconfigure our neighborhoods, our transportation, our infrastructure and everything else to accommodate the Olympics?” That’s just stupid.

RC: Don’t you think the prospect of a party, or some other event that brings international attention, is sometimes the stimulus a city or community needs to start redeveloping?

AS: I’ve heard people say: “We never clean our house unless we have people over for dinner.” Well, if that’s the only time you clean your house, you’re sort of a slob. So I don’t really buy that analogy with regard to the Games.

RC: Some supporters of the bid have argued that the Games will bring new jobs and commercial activity to Washington Park, one of the city’s lowest-income neighborhoods. What do you think about that?

AS: I don’t want to point fingers here, but the city has spent more money on the North Side than the South Side. So, irrespective of anything and totally without any consideration of the Olympics, do I think the city should spend more money on the South Side? Absolutely. It’s a shame that they haven’t. But, on what exactly? That’s a larger conversation; a Daniel Burnham conversation, not a 2016 conversation. A possible scenario—I might even say a likely scenario—is that one would bring the Olympics athletes down Lake Shore Drive, they go across the Midway and they go into the park to compete, and then eventually they go back to the Olympic Village and then back to O’Hare. In that narrow model, there’s no need to do anything north, south or west of the stadium itself. To go back to the dinner party example, if we didn’t have the excuse to clean up, we would never do it otherwise.

Some people really believe that here’s a golden opportunity to fix up a huge chunk of the city. But come 2017, I think it’s very possible that things will look a lot like they do in 2009.

RC: You’ve written several Op-ed pieces about Chicago’s Olympic bid, and you have been quoted in the Chicago Tribune and elsewhere saying that the Games would have a negative impact on Chicago. Why have you been so vocal?

AS: I don’t think this [bid] is much different in some ways than a car salesman or the AARP, or the National Rifle Association; the 2016 Olympic committee is just a special interest group. And somebody may regard them as having a wonderful mission, but other people are going to disagree. I think its important for there at least to be another side; in other words, somebody to say “Well yes, but…” I think it’s important for somebody to say [to Chicago 2016], “Can you explain this? What’s the other side?” I’m not pro-Olympics or anti-Olympics, I just want to be that person, and keep Mr. Ryan and the mayor as honest as I can.

RC: Do you think the city officials behind the bid need someone to “keep them honest?”

AS: Let me put it this way. If I were gong to buy a car, I would want some information first. In this case, I’m trying to provide the information or ask the questions that will force [Chicago 2016] to ante up. For the mayor to have a press conference in Laussane, Switzerland to announce that he’s going to sign the [host cities’ agreement] is, quite frankly, bizarre. He’s the mayor of Chicago, not Laussane, and he’s a citizen of the U.S., not Switzerland, so why didn’t he have a press conference here first?

RC: You wrote an article on May 12 for the Chicago Tribune asking Chicago's committee to write a bid book for Chicagoans What more information about the bid do you think the city needs to hear from Chicago 2016?

AS: I said if you’re going to send a bid book to Laussane, why don’t you write a bid book for Chicago? Tell us, when are you going to start closing off Washington Park, and how long will it be closed? A few of the reporters for the Tribune picked up on that, and they were able to find out that Washington Park will probably be closed for four or five years. I’m not a heavy user of Washington Park, but a lot of people certainly are seven months out of the year. Closed, for a two month long party, we understand that. But are you saying that for 4 or 5 years we have no access to that park?

RC: Have you looked at the various Olympic stadium proposals that may be built in Washington Park, which include plans for either a large, collapsible stadium or a smaller permanent one?

AS: Let me give you a real minority opinion here – not that I haven’t already. Ten years ago [the city was] having similar discussions about what to do with Soldier Field. [Soldier Field] is kind of a mess; it’s not really very good as a football stadium… because they have built the smallest stadium in the National Football League. It’s ugly, it’s horribly dysfunctional, and there’s very little else you can do in a stadium of that size. We should build a stadium that we can be proud of as a city [for the Olympics]. One that would probably have a retractable dome; the Bears could use it, but we could also have bigger events, from political conventions to the Super Bowl to Miley Cyrus or whatever.

RC: So you would advocate for the Olympics Committee to build a larger stadium in Washington Park?

AS: No. Take Soldier Field—we could level it. I wouldn’t put the Olympic Stadium in Washington Park, I would put it at Soldier Field. People might say, “Well isn’t that expensive?” But it’s not that much more expensive. I don’t want to build a facility that we’re going to use for two months. I want a stadium that can be used for years. Now, that’s a really unpopular, minority opinion around here, but I don’t think it’s stupid. If I had to spend a billion bucks [on a stadium], that’s where I’d spend it.

…Also, its not obvious to me what the $350 million [budget to build the Washington Park stadium] is going to cover. Is it just building the stadium? Is it tearing down the stadium, or is that extra? [Chicago 2016] hasn’t made that clear.

RC: Pat Ryan, chairman of Chicago 2016, has said that the economists who argue that the Olympics will be a bad investment for the city don’t really understand the financial approach the committee is taking. What would you say to him if you could sit down together and go over the numbers?

AS: I have nothing against Mr. Ryan. He’s been a good corporate and individual citizen to the city of Chicago. But I’m not unknown to Mr. Ryan, and I’m easy to find. I know he’s got a lot on his plate between now and Oct. 2, but nevertheless I would have welcomed at any point a conversation or several conversations with him [about the bid’s finances]. Sometimes in press conferences the press will say, “Allen Sanderson says this…” and Ryan says he’ll give me a call and explain it. That never happens. I have told [Chicago 2016] my phone number and my teaching schedule and that I’ll make any other times work.

When they wanted to do an economic impact study—which they did—I would have been glad to do it for free…but they never asked. There were hundreds of firms and individuals they could have used that I think would have given them a more accurate proposal, but [the assessment they used] is horribly inaccurate. Until Mr. Ryan can convince me otherwise, that’s the story I’m going to tell. And I can’t really call Mr. Ryan up and say, ”I’ve got something to tell you,” can I? It’s his party, not mine; I can't just invite myself over.


Allen Sanderson is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago and a Senior Research Scientist at the National Opinion Research Center (NORC). The interview transcript has been edited to fit this space.

Olympics loom over South Side community issues

Members of South Side Together Organizing for Power (STOP), and other community organizations protested the closing of a University of Chicago Medical Center clinic on Tuesday afternoon, but the city's Olympic bid was not far from protesters' minds.

A handful of South Side residents, University of Chicago students, and representatives from No Games Chicago, STOP, and the Illinois Single Payer Coalition marched with posters and chanted "healthcare is a human right!" to decry the Medical Center's decision to close a women's clinic on 47th St. at the end of June. Though the protest primarily criticized the Medical Center for disregarding poor people, it nonetheless implicated the city's Olympic bid—and the bid's potential cost for taxpayers—as part of the problem.

Some of the posters raised the question of what public service trade-offs the city may make to fund the Olympics: several read "Better Clinics—No Olympic Games," and one asked, "what do you get tax breaks for?"

For Tom Tresser, the No Games member who brought the "Better Clinics..." posters, the issues of medical services and the 2016 Olympics are inextricable.

"We have the same goals," Tresser, a resident of Lincoln Park, said of the protesters and No Games. "we're trying to make the city better from a grassroots level. One of the things [No Games] has been saying all along is that we want better trains, better schools, better clinics—and not the Games."

Guidi Weiss of the Ill. Single Payer Coalition expressed similar concerns to Tresser's but cautioned that the point of the protest was not to criticize the Olympic bid.

"Today is specifically about the closing of the women's health clinic," she said. The Medical Center "is basically saying 'we don't make money by serving the community.' ... We the tax payers are funding this hospital and the hospital is refusing to serve us."

The Olympics and the health clinic's closing are "completely separate issues," Weiss, a Hyde Park resident, added. "But it's true that the money we spend on the Olympics won't be spent on health care."

"That money is all coming from the same source; it's coming from us, the taxpayers, and we should have a say in where [it] is going."