IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rjpaxx/v83y2017i4p335-345.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How to Bid Better for the Olympics: A Participatory Mega-Event Planning Strategy for Local Legacies

Author

Listed:
  • Eva Kassens-Noor
  • John Lauermann

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Several cities have canceled their Olympic bids in recent years because of local protests and referenda. Bidding cities now face a new political reality as they debate whether a bid is in the best interests of local stakeholders. We present a case study of Boston's (MA) ultimately unsuccessful bid to be the U.S. city selected to host the 2024 Olympic Games. Boston 2024, a nonprofit organization, prepared 2 sequential bids. We ask whether, how, and why Boston 2024 changed its planning approach from the 1st to the 2nd bid to respond to significant protests over its failure to meaningfully involve stakeholders, identify specific legacies, and provide accurate cost details. Our findings are limited by our focus on a single case, the small number of interviewees, and the constraints of ethnographic work. Boston 2024 shifted from an elite-driven process to a more inclusive one, from making generic claims about the impact of hosting the Games to describing local legacies, and from opaque budgets to transparent ones. Boston 2024 did not involve city planners in meaningful ways or engage fully with opponents. These changes were thus not sufficient to overcome substantial local distrust and opposition.Takeaway for practice: Cities considering mega-event bids should encourage a fully participatory planning process that provides genuine local legacies and is transparent about costs and who will bear overruns. City planners would contribute significantly to bid planning that meets these objectives. Cities should also pressure Olympic organizations to make supportive changes in their selection requirements.

Suggested Citation

  • Eva Kassens-Noor & John Lauermann, 2017. "How to Bid Better for the Olympics: A Participatory Mega-Event Planning Strategy for Local Legacies," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 83(4), pages 335-345, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rjpaxx:v:83:y:2017:i:4:p:335-345
    DOI: 10.1080/01944363.2017.1361857
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01944363.2017.1361857
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/01944363.2017.1361857?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Holger Preuss, 2004. "The Economics of Staging the Olympics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 3473.
    2. Bent Flyvbjerg & Allison Stewart & Alexander Budzier, 2016. "The Oxford Olympics Study 2016: Cost and Cost Overrun at the Games," Papers 1607.04484, arXiv.org.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kobe Helsen & Marijke Taks & Jeroen Scheerder, 2022. "Involvement, Social Impact Experiences, and Event Support of Host Residents Before, during, and after the 2021 UCI Road World Championships," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-22, August.
    2. Huei-Fu Lu, 2021. "Hallmark Sporting Events as a Vehicle for Promoting the Sustainable Development of Regional Tourism: Strategic Perspectives from Stakeholders," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-15, March.
    3. Kassens-Noor, Eva, 2019. "Transportation planning and policy in the pursuit of mega-events: Boston's 2024 Olympic bid," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 239-245.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pasquale Lucio Scandizzo & Maria Rita Pierleoni, 2018. "Assessing The Olympic Games: The Economic Impact And Beyond," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 649-682, July.
    2. Martin Schnitzer & Lukas Haizinger, 2019. "Does the Olympic Agenda 2020 Have the Power to Create a New Olympic Heritage? An Analysis for the 2026 Winter Olympic Games Bid," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-21, January.
    3. Olmos, Lorena & Bellido, Héctor & Román-Aso, Juan A., 2020. "The effects of mega-events on perceived corruption," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    4. Firgo, Matthias, 2021. "The causal economic effects of Olympic Games on host regions," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    5. Eva Kassens-Noor & John Lauermann, 2018. "Mechanisms of policy failure: Boston’s 2024 Olympic bid," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(15), pages 3369-3384, November.
    6. Getz, Donald & Page, Stephen J., 2016. "Progress and prospects for event tourism research," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 593-631.
    7. Seung-Jin Han & Won-Jae Lee & So-Hee Kim & Sang-Hoon Yoon & Hyunwoong Pyun, 2022. "Assessing Expected Long-term Benefits for the Olympic Games: Delphi-AHP Approach from Korean Olympic Experts," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(4), pages 21582440221, December.
    8. Bent Flyvbjerg & Allison Stewart & Alexander Budzier, 2016. "The Oxford Olympics Study 2016: Cost and Cost Overrun at the Games," Papers 1607.04484, arXiv.org.
    9. Fourie, Johan & Santana-Gallego, María, 2011. "The impact of mega-sport events on tourist arrivals," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1364-1370.
    10. Christopher Vierhaus, 2019. "The international tourism effect of hosting the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup," Tourism Economics, , vol. 25(7), pages 1009-1028, November.
    11. Julie Clark & Ade Kearns, 2016. "Going for gold: A prospective assessment of the economic impacts of the Commonwealth Games 2014 on the East End of Glasgow," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 34(8), pages 1474-1500, December.
    12. Yawei Chen & Lei Qu & Marjolein Spaans, 2013. "Framing the Long-Term Impact of Mega-Event Strategies on the Development of Olympic Host Cities," Planning Practice & Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(3), pages 340-359, June.
    13. M.R. van den Berg & M. de Nooij, 2013. "The bidding paradox: why economists, consultants and politicians disagree on the economic effects of mega sports events but might agree on their attractiveness," Working Papers 13-08, Utrecht School of Economics.
    14. Weihua Yan & Na Xu & Rui Xue & Zhenghang Ye & Zhaoyang Wang & Dingmeng Ren, 2022. "Efforts Proposed by IOC to Alleviate Pressure on Olympic Games Hosts and Evidence from Beijing 2022," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-18, December.
    15. Luša Đana, 2017. "Olympic Diplomacy and the Emerging States: Striving for Influence in the Multipolar World," Croatian International Relations Review, Sciendo, vol. 23(79), pages 73-102, September.
    16. Petri Lintumäki & Hannes Winner & Sabrina Scheiber & Anna Mederle & Martin Schnitzer, 2020. "The Economic Impact of Participant Sports Events: A Case Study for the Winter World Masters Games 2020 in Tyrol, Austria," Economies, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-23, November.
    17. Mathieu Djaballah & Christopher Hautbois & Michel Desbordes, 2015. "Non-mega sporting events’ social impacts: A sensemaking approach of local governments’ perceptions and strategies," Post-Print hal-03550805, HAL.
    18. Andrea Collins & Andrew Flynn & Max Munday & Annette Roberts, 2007. "Assessing the Environmental Consequences of Major Sporting Events: The 2003/04 FA Cup Final," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 44(3), pages 457-476, March.
    19. Hany Kim & Yeongbae Choe & Daehwan Kim & Jeongmi (Jamie) Kim, 2019. "For Sustainable Benefits and Legacies of Mega-Events: A Case Study of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics from the Perspective of the Volunteer Co-Creators," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-15, April.
    20. Huei-Fu Lu, 2021. "Hallmark Sporting Events as a Vehicle for Promoting the Sustainable Development of Regional Tourism: Strategic Perspectives from Stakeholders," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-15, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:rjpaxx:v:83:y:2017:i:4:p:335-345. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/rjpa20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.