As London sought to use the Olympics to achieve an ambitious programme of urban renewal in the relatively socially deprived East London it attracted global attention and sparked debate. This book provides an in-depth study of the transformation of East London as a result of the 2012 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games. Government and event organisers use legacies of urban renewal to justify hosting the world’s leading sports mega-event, this book examines and evaluates those legacies. The London Olympics and Urban Development: the mega-event city is composed of new research, conducted by academics and policy makers. It combines case study analysis with conceptual insight into the role of a sports mega-events in transforming the city. It critically assesses the narrative of legacy as a framework for legitimizing urban changes and examines the use of this framework as a means of evaluating the outcomes achieved. This book is about that process of renewal, with a focus on the period following the 2012 Games and the diverse social, political and cultural implications of London’s use of the narrative of legacy.

This book brings together a body of new research which looks both backwards and forwards to consider how far the London 2012 Olympic legacy has been delivered and how far it has been a hollow promise. Cohen and Watt consider the lessons that can be learnt from the London experience and aptly apply them other host cities, specifically Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020. The Olympics are often described as a ‘mega-event’ in a way that assumes the host cities have no other existence outside, before or beyond the contexts imposed by the Games themselves. In terms of regeneration, the London 2012 Olympics promised to trigger a mega-regeneration project that was different to what had come before. This time the mistakes of other large-scale projects like London Docklands and Canary Wharf would be put right: top-down planning would be replaced by civic participation, communication and ‘the local’. This edited collection questions how far the 2012 London legacy really is different. In so doing, it brings fresh evidence, original insights and new perspectives to bear on the post-Olympics debate. A detailed and well-researched study, this book will be of great interest to scholars of urban geography, sociology, urban planning, and sports studies.

In this book the author seeks to challenge the view that winning the Olympics benefits the urban and transport projects of the host city. She argues that the urban realities often significantly differ from the development path the host city had set out to accomplish before winning the Olympic bid. Includes interviews from lead host city planners, and focusses on four cities that have hosted the Olympics: Barcelona. Atlanta, Sydney, Athens. The author forecasts London and Rio de Janeiro's urban trajectories and advises cities on how to advance their urban strategic plans and interests while fulfiling the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) fundamental requirements.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of London's bid to host the games was its commitment to legacy where it was argued that ’the legacy would lead to the regeneration of an entire community for the direct benefit of everyone who lives there’. This book adopts a critical approach to the concept of 'legacy' focussing specifically on housing. It argues there will be a range of both intended and unintended legacy outcomes and an urgent need for revised strategies if those original objectives are to be achieved. The concept of legacy is explored in a number of ways, including an overview of housing legacy in other host cities; the experiences and perspectives of those residents decanted to make way for the Olympic Park; a critical review of legacy plans; a detailed analysis of the conversion of the Athletes’ Village into housing; and a case study of the emerging area ’Stratford High Street’, which explores issues of social class change and the limitation of planning policies. Whilst taking housing as its focus, this book adopts a sociological perspective by exploring the likelihood of social class change in order to draw conclusions about 'gentrification', 'social polarisation' and the extent to which 'social inclusion' is reflected in housing legacies.

Drawing upon historical, cultural, economic and socio-demographic perspectives, this book examines the role of a sporting mega-event in promoting urban regeneration and social renewal. Comparing cities that have or will be hosting the event, it explores the political economy of the games and the changing role of the state in creating post-industrial metropolitan spaces. It evaluates the changing perceptions of the Olympic Games and the role of sport in the global media age in general and assesses the implication of 'mega-event' regeneration policies for local communities and their cultural, social and economic identities, with specific reference to east London and the Thames Gateway.

This volume provides an overview of the changing relationship between cities and the Olympic Games, starting from the year 1896. Blending critical conceptual insight with grounded case studies, this book, divided into three parts, explores the historical experience of staging the Olympics from the point of view of the host city.

With appropriate planning and design, Olympic urban development has the potential to leave positive environmental legacies to the host city and contribute to environmental sustainability. This book explains how a modern Olympic games can successfully develop a more sustainable design approach by learning from the lessons of the past and by taking account of the latest developments. It offers an assessment tool that can be tailored to individual circumstances - a tool which emerges from the analysis of previous summer games host cities and from techniques in environmental analysis and assessment.

This book evaluates why cities choose to bid for the Olympics, why Olympic bids fail, and whether cities can benefit from failed bids. Attention is shifted away from host cities (or winners), to consider the impact of the bidding process on urban development in losing cities. Oliver and Lauermann show that bidding is often a politically strategic exercise, as planning ideas are recycled from one bid project to the next. As Olympic bids become more deeply embedded in urban development and bid teams engage in legacy planning, Oliver and Lauermann demonstrate that bid failure is rarely definitive and is often a desirable result. This volume adds a new and innovative perspective to Olympic Studies and mega-events more broadly, with appeal to a variety of other disciplines including geography, urban planning, spatial politics and sport and civic policy.

This book provides a unique perspective on the behind the scenes planning of London's Olympic legacy. The author had unprecedented access to the legacy organisations, institutions, and individuals involved with the 2012 Games. This has allowed her, in a highly accessible and engaging style, to capture a sense of the unfolding drama as attempts were made in London to harness the juggernaut of Olympic development, and its commercial imperative, to the broader cause of meaningful post-industrial regeneration in East London. The book argues that London will become the test-case city against which the legacies of all future Olympic Games, and other sporting mega-events, will be judged. The author provides the first in-depth case study of a mega-event legacy planning operation, and sets out a constructive conclusion, which details the lessons to be learnt from London's experience. Exploring the relationship between mega event planning, and post-industrial urban regeneration, this book will appeal to scholars across Sociology, Sport and Olympic studies, Anthropology, Urban Studies and Geography as well as policymakers and practitioners in urban and sport planning.

Temporary urban uses – innovative ways to transform cities or new means to old ends? The scale and variety of temporary – or meanwhile or interim – urban uses and spaces has grown rapidly in response to the dramatic increase in vacant and derelict land and buildings, particularly in post-industrial cities. To some, this indicates that a paradigm shift in city making is underway. To others, alternative urbanism is little more than a distraction that temporarily cloaks some of the negative outcomes of conventional urban development. However, rigorous, theoretically informed criticism of temporary uses has been limited. The book draws on international experience to address this shortcoming from the perspectives of the law, sociology, human geography, urban studies, planning and real estate. It considers how time – and the way that it is experienced – informs alternative perspectives on transience. It emphasises the importance, for analysis, of the structural position of a temporary use in an urban system in spatial, temporal and socio-cultural terms. It illustrates how this position is contingent upon circumstances. What may be deemed a helpful and acceptable use to established institutions in one context may be seen as a problematic, unacceptable use in another. What may be a challenging and fulfilling alternative use to its proponents may lose its allure if it becomes successful in conventional terms. Conceptualisations of temporary uses are, therefore, mutable and the use of fixed or insufficiently differentiated frames of reference within which to study them should be avoided. It then identifies the major challenges of transforming a temporary use into a long-term use. These include the demands of regulatory compliance, financial requirements, levels of expertise and so on. Finally, the potential impacts of policy on temporary uses, both inadvertent and intended, are considered. The first substantive, critical review of temporary urban uses, Transience and Permanence in Urban Development is essential reading for academics, policy makers, practitioners and students of cities worldwide.