Search results

But that argument itself means the Olympics don't cause and aren't necessary for whatever metric you're using for urban success. All cities that host on the Olympics (Summer, at least) are big, bold, successful cities. Sure, no doubt. We're not talking about East St. Louis 2024. Being...

No, you're wrong. London has consistently ranked as the top tourist destination in the world. Curiously, since MasterCard started doing its Global Destination Cities Index, the only in 2012 and 2013 did London drop from top spot. Way to go Olympic Games. London was the top tourist destination in...

?!?!?! London has been the most visited city on Earth for years, if not decades, prior to 2012. I'm surprised you haven't started claiming the Olympics transformed London into the UK's capital. Why not just go full hog? Since the Olympics, London has become the UK's biggest city! Take that...

I don't understand why you keep acting as though showing something happened after the Olympics is proof that one caused the other. This is such a basic flaw that I don't understand how you can keep repeating it for weeks. London's tourism has been growing since the 2008-9 recession. So has the...

Partisans on both sides of this issue always make a deal about the potential for past offenders to be drivers. What's the big deal though? We shouldn't turn past offenders into economic pariahs. A specific history of dangerous driving may be salient but, on the whole, we should really be...

We're at least 12-15 years out from the DRL opening. No Federal govt is going to be so stupid as to get fooled into giving us billions to build a subway for the Olympics knowing that it will open half a decade after the Games (and cause traffic disruptions during the Games). This reasoning that...

Umm, the Pan-Am games didn't "kick start" the plans around Transit City/SLRT at all. That's plainly a-historical. The only infrastructure that PanAms really delivered was UPx, which was probably the lowest priority project in the region. It's a good example of how mega-events can lead to...

To me this undermines the main argument that mega-events spur transit development via some kind of 'bundling' effect. As you and others have described it, a mega-event will prevent feckless politicians from intervening willy-nilly and allow us to finally get stuff done. But, as the Rob...

I also just recently visited Milan 2015. More or less a waste of time. I had travelled to the area without realizing Expo2015 was even there and was sold on it as a massive food festival. Unfortunately, between the high ticket price and expensive food costs I felt like the whole thing was...

I don't see the point of redeveloping the Allan for increased density. There's no real shortage of land in the area. It's one of the few parts of TO where you can find bungalows 5 mins to a subway station. It seems like effort would be better spent encouraging development along Marlee...

This is just a bunch of non-sequiturs. What do Michigan Ave/Millenium Park/Big Dig have to do with the Olympics? These things aren't even mutually compatible: if QQ was Michigan Avenues, the waterfront wouldn't look like Millenium Park by definition. This also defies logic. The issue with the...

I don't really see how it could adhere to the overall plan. The current plan is already roughly 50% development, ~30% floodplains, ~10% park and ~10% roads. Even with the increased amount of development space in the new proposal we're still looking at billions in costs without the Olympics. If...

When I brought up the craft-beer thing I meant it as an example of a general municipal conservatism. I could have just as easily used the food cart debacle. Or the Parkdale bar ban. Or the CabbageTown stasi complaining about splashpads. Or the inevitable Leslieville-area complains about a new...

Re. Vancouver (or the West Coast generally), Parts of that place are hugely smug. I went to school out there. Literally the only place in the world where people have "eww-ed" when I said I was from Toronto. Not Alberta, not Quebec, not Manitoba, not anywhere else in Ontario. It's insane. That...

Ohh yeah, I agree with that. Most North American cities have become very conservative. Probably the inevitable hangover from decades of urban renewal and highway construction leading to a kind of pseudo-Jacobsian stasis. Like I said earlier, somewhere along the way North American progressive...

I'm not so sure what exactly the author finds lacking here. Granted, that's often the way things are in cities; you can't quite put your finger on what 'it' is that you either love or hate. Still, as I understand it, his criticism seems to be that Toronto lacks personality because it doesn't...

My comment was targeted towards IOC President and well known fascist Juan Samaranch. This isn't ancient, WW2 era, history; a bona fide fascist, in the literal, non-pejorative sense of that word, was in charge of the IOC until 2001 for the love of god. His tenure as IOC president also coincides...

Jacobin ran a piece detailing the organizing work that went into scuttling their Olympic bid. There's lots of details about Boston's particular history, which could probably be analogized to our own conflicts over things like the Spadina Expressway, but the general points the authors bring up...

Hey, it's not my fault what you said was objectively wrong! If you don't want 'philosophy 101 verbiage' don't say things which are don't make sense. Of course, I suppose it's always easier to throw some snark around than to address that you were wrong. Don't you get it?!? LEVERAGE MAN...

This is a straight up logical fallacy. It's literally the politician's syllogism. Your argument boils down to: 1.)Cities must have grand vision, 2.)the Olympics are grand visions, therefore 3.) we must have the Olympics. Even if all the premises are true (is a party for a bunch of sports nobody...