The 2024 Summer Olympics come to an end on Sunday, and life will slowly return to normal in Paris. But a Syracuse University urban planning expert says host cities often struggle with the aftermath. The Olympics can be a huge boost, followed by questions about what to do with the facilities left behind.
It’s been dubbed the Miracle on Ice, when the U.S. upset the heavily favored Soviet Union 4 to 3 in the medal round of the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. One of the most iconic moments in U.S. sports cast an even brighter light on the tiny venue in the northern Adirondacks. SU Architecture professor Jess Myers says hosting comes with a sense of pride and responsibility.
“What the Olympics kind of asks the city to do is really to represent the country to really project a national image, which is why cities bid for them in the first place to be able to bring in that influx of attention," Myers said. "But at the same, they're a very heavy lift.”
Host cities usually have to build competition facilities, housing for athletes, and lodging for families and spectators. Forty-four years later, Lake Placid’s Olympic Village attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists annually who want to see where that Miracle on Ice and other events took place.
But it can be a drain on resources. New York State has spent at least $200 million since 2017 to upgrade and maintain the sites from not only the 1980 games but also the 1932 Olympics. That’s why Professor Myers says bidding on and hosting the Olympics can’t just be about the games themselves.
“It has to be about the life cycle of that infrastructure because as soon as everyone leaves, then automatically that piece of infrastructure, this development becomes a part of that community," Myers said. "So what part is it meant to play there I think is really something that has to be thought about years in advance.”
Myers says host cities also need to consider the money being directed to Olympic facilities and not on development that benefits the community at large.
“Urban activists and planners really pushing the question of, how do we not have the money for this sort of day-to-day maintenance or day-to-day new planning," Myers said. "But as soon as the games come, then we can put all this infrastructure in that maybe doesn't have an alignment with how communities make use of these spaces.”
Myers says bids by U.S. cities and others are coming under heavy criticism as the struggles of former Olympic venues serve as a warning for what may lie ahead.
