Already vulnerable populations are pushed further aside to fund the Olympic Games

Though not in line with the glitz and glamour televised around the world, the infrastructure and economic ability required to host the Olympic Games comes with a dark side for those citizens who are already so vulnerable. There are numerous examples of cities and countries thrusting their own citizens aside to make way for the international competitors and visitors the Olympic Games surely bring. The 1996 Atlanta Games came with the forced relocation of 6,000 residents from public housing, followed by rapid gentrification which displaced another 24,000 people.^[1] A similar pattern followed a more recent Olympic Game, the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. Although Brazil ranks 12th in social inequality, the government was somehow able to gather $14 billion to pay for hosting their games.^[2] Furthermore, more than 250,000 people were forced to relocate from their homes. This is a familiar pattern, as according to a 2008 report the six Summer Olympics held between the 1988 Seoul Games and the 2008 Beijing Games forcibly evicted or otherwise displaced more than 2 million people. This draws into question how cities with already vulnerable populations, like the homeless population in Los Angeles, will fare when the 2028 Olympic Games returns to the city.^[3] Additionally, a familiar promise of cities interested in hosting the Olympic Games is that there will be an immense amount of jobs created for local citizens. However, this is not the case. Salt Lake City is a viable case study for this, as only 10% of the amount of promised jobs were created for the Games, and a vast majority of those when to those who were already employed.^[4] Thus, the unemployed and vulnerable were not aided at all. In sum, the international spotlight the Olympic Games creates forces a city to put its best face forward, unfortunately, this rarely coincides with what is best for the entire population.