San Francisco puts in chips for 2024 Olympics (xpost from GD)

[KamaAina]

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/San-Francisco-puts-in-chips-for-2024-Olympics-5905458.php

San Francisco is officially bidding on the 2024 Olympics, organizers have disclosed to The Chronicle, and their pitch for the Summer Games will focus on the Bay Area’s distinctions, ingenuity and character....

Plenty of uncertainty remains, however, including whether improvements to housing, transportation and other infrastructure are worth the cost of hosting the Games....

The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing are estimated to have cost $44 billion. Last winter’s Games in Sochi, Russia, may have cost even more. Last month, Norway withdrew its bid for Oslo to host the 2022 Winter Games, following at least four other cities that dropped out. Munich was considering a bid for that Olympics, but decided against it after voters rejected the idea in a referendum.

“It looks more and more like a boondoggle,” said Andrew Zimbalist, economics professor at Smith College in Massachusetts and author of the upcoming book “Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the Olympics and World Cup.”

We may need to take a page out of Boston's book on this one.

Boston Is Already Saying ‘Hell No' to the 2024 Olympics

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025839483

[msongs]

1. have it in Silicon Valley. make it a virtual olympics. saves massive $$ and destruction nt

[Brother Buzz]

2. I'm a selfish single wedge issue dude

If we can get a second Velodrome built in the Bay Area, a world class indoor track built in, say, the North Bay, I'm all for it.

Movers and shakers in Marin county are already scheming and scamming toward that goal.

[Hoppy]

3. Our New Jersey boondoggle was the Super Bowl game in February.

That cost the state a shitload of $$$.

[NV Whino]

4. Oh please no.

[Auggie]

5. NO! NO! NO!

[petronius]

6. Sounds like a truly terrible idea; I'd be gobsmacked if the city/state got back

more in benefits, income, and new infrastructure than would be tossed into the money-pit the modern Olympics have become. My suggestion would be to set aside half the amount the Olympics would cost, burn half of that in a great big bonfire, and use the rest for useful new stuff - we'd probably still come out way ahead...

[Lordquinton]

7. that would be a terrible idea

I can only imagine which communities they would destroy to get it done.

[LeftyMom]

8. How much crap would they have to build?

Between the professional sports teams, Cal and Stanford, you'd have facilities for damn near every summer event that were ready to go or needed minor upgrades. There are already metric craptons of hotels. Any transportation upgrades would continue to be of use after the events, and are sorely needed in any case.

They're a bad idea for places that have to build stadiums and golf courses and hotels and blah blah from scratch, but the Bay Area already has all of that stuff, often in duplicates, and most of it is world class.