Go London! It seemed to me that they wanted it more than Paris. Hurrah!
I vote that the Brits choose Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders to do the Olympic Moment commentary.
It brought a tear to my eye this morning to realize that, yes, Virginia, there are still a few people out there with common sense. I was dreading the prospect of being the host city. I personally am going to start ripping off the “2012 Olympics Candidate” decals off the subways this afternoon.
I’m actually one of the people who hoped NYC would snag the deal, despite themselves.
No, i don’t think living amidst a seemingly perpetual state of re-construction and re-design is fun. But, doing something on the scale of the Olympics is a fantastic, realtively easy opportunity to do good, long-term urban re-development in a very fast-n-effecient scale of time. Not that any portion of NYC needs to be, in anyway, re-designed… of course not. (We all NYC is a finely tuned balance of human meat, train hubs, wires, and exhaust fumes — all in carefully measured proportions. Why change what works so well?)
The “Barcelona Effect” allows an Olympic city to pack 20-30 years of urban *re-development* into 5-7 years. Wow. That stinks.
I can think of few mega-cities on the planet that could not use a good jolt of re-development, much less a cost-effective, potentially far-lasting development and re-organization of infrastructure and living and working spaces.
One of the big reasons London’s scheme won was that it seeks to leverge any new construction with long needed and desired changes to their city. (The East End, finally, gets a makeover! Like, more places to live, and less places to drink and fall down pissed in your and others’ vomit.) Meanwhile, old Paris shunned any grand creative efforts and merely embraced small re-organizations of their city and equally meek infrastructure re-dressings. Ouch. Oh, and they didn’t mention helping those aspiring Snowboarding or Cricket playing youth in Soweto Township. No kids helped? Bigger Ouch. (London Olympics 2012 = Urban ReDevelopment & 3rd World Youth Cultivation)
Meanwhile, Paris/NYC/Etc.: Meek investment efforts meeting even meeker urban re-development dreams. Cities die that way, slowly.
London sees the olympics as a huge hassle and bigger challenge, too, just like most NewYorkers.
Difference? –> They wanted to improve their city, and their world, despite the hassles.
Go London! It seemed to me that they wanted it more than Paris. Hurrah!
I vote that the Brits choose Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders to do the Olympic Moment commentary.
It brought a tear to my eye this morning to realize that, yes, Virginia, there are still a few people out there with common sense. I was dreading the prospect of being the host city. I personally am going to start ripping off the “2012 Olympics Candidate” decals off the subways this afternoon.
I’m actually one of the people who hoped NYC would snag the deal, despite themselves.
No, i don’t think living amidst a seemingly perpetual state of re-construction and re-design is fun. But, doing something on the scale of the Olympics is a fantastic, realtively easy opportunity to do good, long-term urban re-development in a very fast-n-effecient scale of time. Not that any portion of NYC needs to be, in anyway, re-designed… of course not. (We all NYC is a finely tuned balance of human meat, train hubs, wires, and exhaust fumes — all in carefully measured proportions. Why change what works so well?)
The “Barcelona Effect” allows an Olympic city to pack 20-30 years of urban *re-development* into 5-7 years. Wow. That stinks.
I can think of few mega-cities on the planet that could not use a good jolt of re-development, much less a cost-effective, potentially far-lasting development and re-organization of infrastructure and living and working spaces.
One of the big reasons London’s scheme won was that it seeks to leverge any new construction with long needed and desired changes to their city. (The East End, finally, gets a makeover! Like, more places to live, and less places to drink and fall down pissed in your and others’ vomit.) Meanwhile, old Paris shunned any grand creative efforts and merely embraced small re-organizations of their city and equally meek infrastructure re-dressings. Ouch. Oh, and they didn’t mention helping those aspiring Snowboarding or Cricket playing youth in Soweto Township. No kids helped? Bigger Ouch. (London Olympics 2012 = Urban ReDevelopment & 3rd World Youth Cultivation)
Meanwhile, Paris/NYC/Etc.: Meek investment efforts meeting even meeker urban re-development dreams. Cities die that way, slowly.
London sees the olympics as a huge hassle and bigger challenge, too, just like most NewYorkers.
Difference? –> They wanted to improve their city, and their world, despite the hassles.
rob@egoz.org