The Negative Side of the Olympics

I don't want to get into the debate about whether athletes should or should not participate in the Beijing Olympics. That gets far too heated, and my personal opinions are still in flux about it.

But when I was in Vancouver, the site of the 2010 Winter Games, they were a topic of discussion in terms of the impact on the residents of the area. And, oddly enough, this week I came across a blog post at And She Knits Too which led me to thinking about it again. My friend KJ (aka Lunadog) posted a comment there, which you can read here. The blog also has a link to some books about the issues of the Olympics, which sound like interesting reads, though the author is quite anti-Olympics as they have become in our current world.

The point of my Vancouver friends' comments is that the Olympics isn't really any lasting benefit to the majority of the Vancouver population - although the development will bring some additional jobs, during the construction of the venues and the hotels/motels/restaurants will be full during the Games themselves. But the average citizen will have major construction delays to deal with as they get around the area, the tickets are far out of reach for most budgets, and after the Games are over, there will be limited positive effects on their incomes for the long term. Obviously the local Olympics Committee says otherwise, in the best corporate-speak. But the local sponsors and contractors, hotel owners and so forth will certainly benefit. The rich do get richer, don't they? Plus I understand that Whistler, where the skiing-related events will occur, is difficult to reach (Mapquest says it's 70-some miles from Vancouver proper) and the existing roads are dangerous and far from adequate for the sort of traffic that will be using them. Building a better road? When did any of us encounter major road construction that can be done in less than a couple of years in the city, let alone in a mountain area?

As it happens, I lived for many years with a side effect of the 1976 Olympics that didn't happen in Denver; it was turned down by the residents, who thankfully had a vote on the matter. My condo development was built by a Californian company that built on speculation that the Games would happen there. And clearly some graft and bribery went into the construction, since we discovered to our sorrow that the insulation was flimsy at best and several aspects of the plumbing failed to take Denver winters into account. Two out of the four condos in each building had water pipes running up exterior walls with no - that's right, NO! - insulation around them. When I moved there in 1978, I found that the ceiling insulation didn't even cover the ceiling beams. Those of you who live in climates like Denver's can imagine the problems - frozen and burst water pipes, water damage, etc. The financial impacts were horrible, both for the residents and the condo association; at one point we nearly lost our blanket insurance policy and the association's finances were so bad that many lenders wouldn't issue mortgages for the units. (Yeah, I wound up on the condo board.)

I understand that some low-income housing will be demolished to provide housing and other structures for the Olympics. I wonder if some of the new housing will be pushed through under marginal standards, with the excuse of the 2010 deadline. How will the low-income families displaced be housed, either during the construction or after the Olympics?

My conversations in Vancouver and my housing problems in Denver don't begin to constitute a thorough look into the side effects of hosting an Olympics, as they affect the residents. But I'm interested in the experiences of others who live or have lived in an Olympic host city. Most of the comments I've heard about the 1984 Olympics here in LA only say that, because employers cooperated with flextime for their workforce, the traffic flow was the best in anyone's memory. Were you living in Atlanta (1996), Calgary (1988), or Salt Lake City (2002)? If so, please speak up about your experiences.

Oh, yeah, this is a Knitting Blog!

On the knitting-related front, yesterday I had my first physical therapy session for my tendinitis, which has in the last couple of weeks caused some nerve tingling in my hand as well as the pain in my arm. Diagnosis: poor posture with rounded back and hunched shoulders, too many hours at one time at the computer and knitting or reading (all involving much the same body position) and not enough exercise. So I got a wonderful neck and shoulder massage, exercises to do with my shoulders and back to stretch my shortened chest muscles, and orders to take frequent breaks from the computer or knitting or reading, and to WALK more. I go back tomorrow and I have a couple more appointments for next week. I've been doing the exercises, I've put pillows under my elbows while knitting and reading (another change), and I plan a walk today after it cools off. But I just realized I've been here Net surfing and typing for most of 2 hours. Gotta get that kitchen timer in here. Guess I'll go wash and block a couple of FOs so I can show them to you.