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

The argument

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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The fault of failing a population rests on an individual country and city, not on the presence of the Olympic Games. More than likely, vulnerable populations were being under-appreciated and underinvested in long before the possibility of hosting the games arrived. Furthermore, the games can actually be an opportunity to improve life for these populations. For example, London’s East End had been notorious for decades, if not centuries, for its deep poverty and societal issues, with its population historically various people of color. London, by investing deeply in this community prior to the 2012 Summer Games, was able to regenerate and improve life in many ways. Similarly, Barcelona spent 83% of its budget on urban improvement for the 1992 Summer Games. Revitalizing a city for the local population and a successful hosting of the Olympic Games are not mutually exclusive events.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The displacement is well documented and is attributed to the wrong thing. These were decisions taken by particular governments, and the premise does not show that hosting requires them — Barcelona and London directed the great majority of their spending into the affected districts. [Rejecting P2] One city's employment shortfall is thin evidence for a general claim, and job creation is only one of the benefits usually asserted. Transport, housing and sanitation investment brought forward by a fixed deadline is the part the premise omits. [Rejecting P3] The motive attributed is plausible and unnecessary. Cities that neglect vulnerable populations during a games generally neglected them beforehand, which points to prior policy rather than to the event. [Rejecting C] 'Overall bad' requires a balance the premises never strike. The costs are set out and nothing is weighed against them, and the argument's own examples include cities where the outcome ran the other way.