So, Chicago Didn’t Get The Olympic Bid by Rambling Raven

I am a life long Chicagoan. Over the past two years I have heard nothing coming from city hall but how great it would be for Chicago to obtain the 2016 Olympics. Oh, we did our best. We wined and dined the international Olympic committee. We made videos on how great the city was and everything it has to offer. We also brought out our “star” Chicagoans like Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama and yes, in the end, President Obama. And still it didn’t impress the international Olympic committee one bit. We were the first city voted out of the running. In the end Rio de Janeiro, got it, the first South American city ever. Good luck to Rio.

The Chicago Olympic Committee was crushed by the devastating news. And in this horrid political atmosphere many anti-Obamanites have been pointing their fingers and laughing at how Obama’s support landed on deaf ears. In fact some political pundits are going so far as to say that the Olympic fallout spells doom for Obama’s presidency. How in the world some have come to that conclusion I will never understand? I didn’t know the Olympics held that much political clout.

Surprisingly, the only ones that may have been disappointed by the Olympics not given to Chicago were overwhelmingly non Chicagoans. Several different local poles conducted before the announcement of the host city showed that most Chicago residents were against the Olympics. One pole showed that 74% of those surveyed were hoping that we did not obtain the bid. Most people I know had the exact same sentiments.

Why were so many residents here against having the Olympics? The reasons are varied but many argued that the cost to the city would have been grater than any revenues we would have gained. The cost was estimated to be around 4-5 billion dollars. The cost was suppose to come from private investors but most of us here understood that if any thing wasn’t covered by private investors would have to be covered through higher taxes for the residents. We already pay one of the highest taxes in the nation; few wanted to see more money coming out of their pockets. We would be paying the price of the Olympics for decades to come. Just take Athens, Greece for example. The city did massive campaigning for the Olympics and once they got it they went into debt trying to host it. Athens did not reap any cost benefits from the Olympics that could have helped offset the financial sacrifice the city had to make.

And then there are many here who say that Chicago has bigger fish to fry than to play host city to the 2016 Olympics. We have one of the highest crime rates in the nation. We have failing schools that are in desperate need of funding. We have communities that are often overlooked and are in need of restructuring. It is common knowledge here that instead of helping those trouble communities all city government was going to do was to get rid of the residents and mow down the neighborhoods. In fact many places where Olympic villages were going to be built were areas where poor black folk resided. And those folk were going to have their neighborhoods rebuilt without them there.

And we can not forget the overwhelming hassle that an extra 1-2 million people would have had on the function of the city. Our public transportation system already sucks, I can’t even imagine how it would function with hundreds of thousands more riders. Our police department is overtaxed; I can’t imagine how they would have faired with being in charge of the safety of all the extra bodies that would’ve passed in and out of the city on a daily basis.

Good luck to Rio. The Olympics can be as much of a headache as it can be a blessing. I honestly don’t know if Rio is up to it any more than Chicago would have been. I do know Rio’s crime rate is a huge problem and there are many poor people who reside on the streets of that city, sadly most of them are children. I hope Rio deals with these issues in an efficient and humane way.

I don’t think Chicago will suffer by not hosting the Olympics. I do want to know, however, how come we can come up with an estimated 4 billion to host it but we can not come up with that type of money to help improve life in the city overall? I am willing to reach into my pockets for the improvements of our schools, neighborhoods, our city streets and safety. I am not so willing to do it to host a party.

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