The 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea concluded a little over a month ago, and to be honest, I was pretty sad it was ending. During previous years, I was never into watching the games, but I was surprisingly more invested in them this year. During the eighteen days of competition, I had done some research and learned that New York City proposed a bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics, so it was interesting to learn more about what the bid included and what it meant for the city as explained in this week’s readings. The NYC2012 bid demonstrated rezoning and altered the city, even though the Olympics ended up not being held in the city.
To put it simply, rezoning is altering the use of a specific area in the city. In NYC2012’s case, the Far West Side, was to be transformed from an industrial area to a tourist magnet. There was a goal already to redevelop this area anyway, so the Olympics seemed like the perfect way to do so, right? The Olympic Stadium would be built on the Far West Side, along with an extension of the 7 train and other new buildings. A plan was also mapped out on how these buildings would be used for local sports teams, affordable housing and other businesses after the games were over. The bid seemed to touch upon all possible holes and flaws, while knocking out two birds with one stone as it covered redevelopment and becoming the host of a prestigious event among the sports world. Except, one thing was missing. The local community.
A modern-day Robert Moses appeared, Daniel Doctoroff, who was determined to make NYC2012 happen and led the creation of the bid. Him and Mayor Bloomberg developed this bid which seemed to “run counter to the local community’s own desires with very little public oversight or input.” (Brash 2006, Larson 2013, 35) However, Larson also states that many New Yorkers were “indifferent to the idea” of the games being held in their city. If New Yorkers didn’t care, then it can be argued that Doctoroff and Bloomberg were justified in dictating how the Olympics were to be planned out and where money went. However, contrary to Larson’s statement about New Yorkers being “indifferent”, I did find a poll issued by Quinnipiac University in 2004 which displayed New York City voters support of hosting the 2012 Olympics, but disapproval of a new stadium (because of taxes). Different political parties, races, genders and boroughs are represented in the data, and all seem to support and oppose the same things. The data can be found here: https://poll.qu.edu/new-york-city/release-detail?ReleaseID=553. Most New Yorkers supported the expansion of the Javits Center and the 7 train line, and supported rezoning areas to allow for new apartments.
Mitchell L. Moss, the Director of the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at NYU, describes how New York “won the Olympics” even though the city lost the bid. The Far West Side was still redeveloped, with new buildings and the expansion of the Javits Center and the 7 train was also still extended. The Olympic Village that was proposed for Hunter’s Point was made into affordable housing. (Chiwaya; Levy 2016) Many other parts of certain boroughs that were part of NYC2012 still ended up being redeveloped. Moss concluded that “NYC 2012 was more than the Olympics; it was a development plan based on initiative that had been the subject of previous study but little action.” From his words, the Olympic bid is what jump-started the city’s plans and “provided the framework to shape the future of the city.” (Moss 2011)
Let’s be honest, if NYC2012 actually happened, the city might have been in complete chaos and congestion during the weeks of the games; more than we see today. With thousands of athletes from all around the world and also additional tourists, it would have made the daily life of New Yorkers even more difficult. My dad commented on the idea of it saying, “Even the athletes would be late to their own games!” Without the games, New Yorkers still got an extended 7 train, expanded Javits Center and new buildings on the West Side. So maybe it was good that New York City didn’t win the bid to host the event – you don’t always need the gold to be a winner.
References:
Chiwaya, Nigel and Levy, Nicole (2016) How NYC ‘s Failed 2012 Olympic Bid Shaped the City we Live in Today. https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20160816/midtown/how-nycs-failed-2012-olympic-bid-shaped-city-we-live-today (last accessed 23 March 2018)
Larson, Scott (2013) The Bloomberg Practice. In Larson, Scott “Building Like Moses with Jacobs in Mind:” Contemporary Planning in New York City. (pp 33-37) Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Moss, Mitchell L. (2011) How New York City Won the Olympics. https://wagner.nyu.edu/files/faculty/publications/Olympics_in_NYC_2012_REPORT_110711.pdf (last accessed 22 March 2018)
Quinnipiac University. (2004) New Yorkers Back 2012 Olympic Bid 2 – 1, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Voters Back Javits, But Oppose Stadium. https://poll.qu.edu/new-york-city/release-detail?ReleaseID=553 (last accessed 23 March 2018)
I found it interesting how Allison linked this reading about rezoning for the 2012 Summer Olympics to the recent 2018 Winter Olympics which was a nice way to start her blog. Onto the actual content, it was really informative to link the poll issued by Quinnipiac University in 2004 which has direct statistics about what some community members felt about the redevelopment of the area. However, I think it’s important to think about the context in which the community was asked to consider this redevelopment plan – it doesn’t stand to reason that there were multiple mayoral administrations that attempted to work with this area of land and fail for decades in the past (like the Koch, Dinkins, and Giuliani administrations) (Larson 2013, 34). In addition to that, developers are undoubtedly primarily interested in revenue over the actual people that live in that area – the whole point of this rezoning plan was to take a “wasteland” and make it more financially profitable and productive. This isn’t to say that rezoning will necessarily have negative impacts on the local community, but rather that the local community isn’t the foremost priority when planning. Allison mentioned affordable housing and apartments, but ultimately, the focus was on the buildings that would bring income – like the office buildings and the plaza. “Residential buildings…do not pay a lot of property taxes or fees in the first 10 years. And the office towers were slow to materialize.” (Bagli 2015)
In a recent article by Charles Bagli in 2015, he talks of how the attempts to rezone have progressed – that it has generated so much money that the city doesn’t have to take money out of its budget to make payments for the bonds used to build the parks and subway in the area. However, this success was not always the case. “Critics have long complained that revenues from Hudson Yards development have fallen short of what former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had once promised, forcing the city to provide $358 million since 2006 to cover the debt payments, which now run $153 million a year.” (Bagli 2015) Ultimately, this rezoning has captured the interest of many developers, who had invested $336 million in fees and development rights. (Bagli 2015) While some may consider this rezoning a success due to growth and prosperity it allowed the “city” (one is led to believe the city here refers to the government and private enterprises), how much further can we take redevelopment? As Daniel L. Doctoroff told Charles Bagli, “[The development], particularly office towers, was necessary…Otherwise, Manhattan was running out of room for new development.” What else can our city do to continue in this trajectory to “create conditions for the private market to invest”? (Doctoroff, Bagli 2015)
References:
Bagli C (2015) Redevelopment of Manhattan’s Far West Side gains momentum. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/20/nyregion/redevelopment-of-manhattans-far-west-side-gains-momentum.html?mtrref=www.google.com (last accessed 24 March 2018)