Replacing place with space: the influences and the challenges of the new norm on the Milan-Cortina Winter Games 2026

ABSTRACT

As part of its ongoing review of the processes surrounding the hosting of the Olympic Games (OGs), the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has set out the Olympic Agenda 2020 and the related New Norm (NN). These reforms, respectively approved in 2014 and 2018 to deal with the growing withdrawal of the bids, are in line with recent management studies highlighting the importance of standardization and replicability in the delivery of physical and social infrastructure. Indeed, they aim to convert development projects, historically-embedded in places, into programmable and transferable spaces of action, in which rules of project management and organization can be applied. The example of the Milano-Cortina Winter Games (MCWG) 2026 is used to assess the first effects and impacts of such IOC's new approach. At the backdrop of the historical evolution of mega-event planning in post-war Italy, the rolling-out of the MCWG is examined at the multiple scales of the Olympic macro-region and of the Milan Olympic Village. The analysis shows that, despite the objectives of the NN to overcome existing tensions and conflicts in the involved places, the Games has only succeeded in amplifying them. Such contradiction demands for a further reflection on this model, that remains under-discussed and under-researched.

KEYWORDS:

• Olympic Games
• urban and regional change
• territorial sustainability
• governance
• spatial planning

Introduction

In recent decades, the International Olympic Committee [IOC] has faced mounting difficulties in securing host cities for both Summer and Winter Games. Even prior to the current wave of geopolitical instability, public budgets across many countries were strained due to the long-term repercussions of the 2008 global financial crisis and the ongoing Covid pandemic. Consequently, local and national governments have become increasingly hesitant to underwrite large-scale infrastructure projects, even when there is political will. The cost of organizing Games has also surged significantly. These events often suffer from inadequate planning and an excessive reliance on expensive private sector resources and expertise. Numerous studies highlight the tendency of mega-events to exceed their budgets.¹ Moreover, in an era of growing financialisation in urban planning systems and implementation processes, mega-events are now also required to fit in with the models of project delivery and risk management found in the private sector. However, this requirement has created new complexities over asset ownership and control, all of which further increase project costs and policy uncertainties.

In response to these growing concerns the IOC has introduced a series of measures to ‘de-risk’ the Games by providing clear frameworks for local and national authorities to follow, built on standardized management techniques and processes. In the last decade, it published an Olympic Agenda 2020² to provide a ‘fundamental rethink’ for ‘a major review of all aspects of organisation – from candidature to delivery through to legacy’.³ This ‘re-think’ involved the rolling-out of what was termed a New Norm (NN), that is a framework for how to govern and manage the delivery of an Olympics. The NN is presented as a win-win for both the IOC and the local and national governments of the hosts. It is imagined that, through the application of new types of standardization, a programme for the governance and delivery of future Games can be rolled-out, adapting to multiple contexts, and overcoming the contentious place-based politics of earlier events. In short, it aims to convert messy places into clearly bounded and managed development spaces, thereby reducing some of the potential risks of development and associated costs.⁴

In order to create ‘positive and enduring benefits’ for host cities, the NN reconsiders placed-based environments as spatial resources and assets to be exploited through the application of management techniques: ‘to be successful, such planning should […] be synchronized with the host city’s long-term urban development goals’; furthermore, ‘to support this effort, the IOC will sit alongside candidate and host cities to facilitate their planning and implementation, evaluate outcomes and share best practices’.⁵ Therefore, it is assumed that mega-event projects can be implemented to complement the planning priorities of host city authorities, taking for granted that their goals (if they exist at all) are coherent, integrated, and effective.⁶

It is in this wider context that this paper examines the Milan-Cortina Winter Games (MCWG) 2026 – the first European Olympics that has ostensibly used the NN framework to plan all aspects, from the candidature process to the delivery of infrastructure and venues. We argue that the imagined ability of standardized frameworks, such as the NN, to overcome the historically-developed complexities of place represents a form of what Rancière terms ‘utopian realism’ – or an imagined programme of action that simultaneously claims to be embedded in place-based forms of reality, whilst advocating abstractions and imagined outcomes that are divorced from that reality.⁷ Accordingly, we undertake an historical overview of the emergence and transition of mega-events in relation to spatial planning programmes and agendas in both the European context (lighter) and the Italian context (deeper). Specifically, we use this analysis to demonstrate some of the structural difficulties that the introduction of standardized governance frameworks have created in their efforts to ‘overcome’ the local conditions (cultural, social, economic, environmental, political) that exist in real places.

We argue that any attempt to do so is fraught with limitations. Historic and sometimes entrenched approaches to spatial planning, as well as political and ideological differences between governments and political parties, cannot be imagined away and airbrushed out of mega-projects just because they are being led by international organizations. Moreover, the emergence of increasingly financialised forms of urban development planning has meant that projects are compelled to generate returns for private actors. This adds another layer of complexity in programmes of standardization as property markets and the political willingness of governments to work with private actors vary markedly between places.

The paper begins by discussing some of the academic writing on the impacts of the Olympic Games and the rise of the NN. We follow this with an overview of the particular histories and traditions associated with Italian mega-event planning, before turning to the specifics of the MCWG 2026 and focusing on the project of the Milan Olympic Village. In particular, we consider the effects of the NN on the delivery of venues and infrastructure and their connections with the macro-regional scale. Drawing on documentary analysis (based on the collection and investigation of the official plans, policies and programmes approved by the institutions directly involved in the process), we highlight some of the conflicts and tensions that exist in relation to spatial planning within and between the Olympic clusters of the host macro-region. Specifically, we highlight how the MCWG has served to amplify them, rather than act as a source of new political cohesion and consensus over the priorities of spatial policy.

The new norm and the standardisation of spatial development planning

In 2014 the IOC published a significant policy statement named the Olympic Agenda 2020. It was in large part a response to growing criticism over the exorbitant costs and negative impacts of previous Games and a reduced interest from city authorities to bid for the 2022, 2024 and 2028 editions. Flyvbjerg et al. estimate that cost overruns since the Tokyo Games of 1960 have averaged 172% in real terms, ‘the highest overrun on record for any type of megaproject’.⁸ They claim that the reasons for this are clear, resulting from a combination of: irreversibility once the decision to deliver the Olympics has been made; fixed deadlines that preclude the active management of risks over a longer time-period; structural financial mechanisms that put the financial costs directly on to the budgets of national and city governments (what they term a blank check syndrome); long time-frames of development that expose Games to the risk of financial downturns and/or significant changes in expected costs; and the challenge of delivering events in completely different locations, with very different geographies and variables (what they term an eternal beginners syndrome). In short, the Games have tended to be under-planned, with projects focused on vague long-term visions, whilst at the same time being overly-dependent on private expertise and finance.

The experiences of European Olympics in the twenty-first Century have reflected these criticisms to different degrees. The Athens Games 2004 was designed to replicate the urban transformation and international relaunch of Barcelona 1992 and involved costly interventions that some claim helped to trigger a wider debt crisis for the Greek state.⁹ The London Games 2012 also saw public spending in excess of £9billion, dwarfing all expenditure on urban policy programmes in the UK during the first years of the 2000s, with resources concentrated in supporting the further development of London as a global centre for growth.¹⁰ Despite the approval of a Legacy Plan before the Games, the project has been unable to overturn social disparities and has fuelled conflicts over (un)just forms of spatial development within London and across the UK.¹¹ Along with its exceptionally high costs, the project raised wider questions over accountability, given that much of it was delivered by private actors and a quango, the Olympic Delivery Authority.¹²

The Paris Games 2024 have been presented by proponents, such as Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, as the ‘first to implement the IOC’s Agenda 2020’ that will set in place ‘a new way of approaching and building Olympic venues that is more sustainable and eco-friendly, with a paired-down budget and more closely connected with the everyday lives of the residents of the host city and country’.¹³ An organization named Solideo has been set up to oversee the delivery process, with a dual role of planning for the Urban Development Zone (Zone d'aménagement concerté) and supervising the Olympic work of private firms. Its Board of Directors is dominated by national State representatives and 12 local authorities, and the delivery has been separated into two distinct streams: one focusing on the management of the contractors, the other seeking to develop social priorities and objectives, set out in minute detail in a Legacy and Sustainability Plan.¹⁴ However, even with such careful management and an attempt to ensure that the Games do not follow the London model of expenditure, the budget has continued to expand with central government spending €4.4billion, a figure that increased by 10% in 2022 alone and looks set to grow with energy and construction costs expanding beyond those anticipated.¹⁵ And as with London 2012, the focus on the capital city has meant major new investments in places that are already seen as ‘successful’, thus acting also as a potential source of wider conflict over spatial policy priorities in the country.¹⁶

In light of these experiences the IOC worked on the creation of a what it termed a New Norm [NN] for host authorities to follow. The NN established transferable principles and good governance structures that promised, if followed, to reduce the cost and complexity of the hosting process. A ‘dialogue’ phase has been introduced to foster preliminary discussions with governments, with no firm commitments needing to be given. This is followed by a ‘candidature’ phase in which the IOC supplies its own technical experts to provide specialist advice, taken from the experiences of earlier Olympics. The IOC claims that in the following the NN as much as $1 billion (£718 million/€806 million) could be saved from the costs of staging a Summer OGs and $500 million (£359 million/€403 million) for the Winter edition. The strong emphasis on financial cost reflects a broader fear that austerity in public budgets, following the global financial crisis 2008, limits the capacity of city authorities to pursue mega-events and similar, but smaller events.¹⁷

The NN promotes the Games as a vehicle for building more consensual, delivery-oriented forms of public policy. It is imagined that positive ‘success’ stories will boost the legitimacy of the Olympic movement as a whole and reduce the tensions and criticisms that have marred earlier projects. The containment of political conflict thus becomes ‘a precondition for the effective implementation of policy as it enables policymakers to depoliticise development projects, so that professionals are able to act freely to get on with the process of making development happen’.¹⁸ In Rancière's terms,¹⁹ it represents an ambivalent form of governing that is both visionary and grounded at the same time. Visionary in the sense of establishing utopian, transferable models of how to govern, whilst at the same promising a degree of realism in setting out claims over delivery practices that imply that local, place-based conditions and circumstances are knowable and manageable. It is further presumed that by providing successful governance models and frameworks, the Games will be kept away from historically-embedded political controversies and ideological differences. It can facilitate a political ‘re-set’ or a new moment in which earlier conflicts are put to one side and replaced by more focused and purposeful forms of output-centred governance. This is especially significant as across the Global North urban projects have reflected and helped reproduce new forms of inequality in the provision of housing and social infrastructure.²⁰ In presenting the Olympic movement as a benign form of support, the ambition is to reduce the risk of eliding Games with these (perceived and actual) policy failures.

The NN is thus designed to create local governance arrangements that reflect changing global investment landscapes and the needs of powerful institutional investors such as Sovereign Wealth Funds and state-owned enterprises.²¹ In many cities urban planning has become financialised, with value-capture from profit-driven projects used to fund welfare instruments.²² It is assumed that investors and developers who implement projects in partnership with city governments welcome standardization and the political clarity that it promises.²³ Their interests can be aligned with host cities thus enabling private finance and expertise to play a leading role in generating positive outcomes. But these assumptions are fraught with difficulties. What investors seek from urban projects may be very different to what the NN imagines. In many European cities financialised modes of development are generating higher-density mass-produced environments dominated by new forms of relatively quick-to-build and high-return housing such as build-to-rent and/or student accommodation.²⁴ The outcomes of such projects may differ markedly from the narratives found in the IOC’s documents but need to be accommodated in any Games planning. There are additional tensions. The NN’s stated ambition to reduce public sector costs means reduced financial returns for those delivering mega-projects, thus making investments less likely. A ‘costly’ Games benefits those who are paid to deliver them.

In the next section we develop the analysis to examine the ways in which the NN has impacted on the development of the Milan-Cortina Winter Games [MCWG] 2026. As we show the event has introduced innovative combinations of public/private investments, the reuse of existing facilities/brownfields, and the use of diverse urban/mountain locations. Specifically, considering this last feature, the MCWG 2026 has spatially extended an approach that was already experimented in the twenty-first Century editions of the Winter Games and in relation to the relatively long history in Italy of using mega-events to drive modernizing urban and regional development projects.

An historical background: the Italian Olympic games and other mega-events

The MCWG reflects and reproduces historically embedded trends within Italian spatial planning policy and the priorities of successive governing coalitions, stretching back to the late nineteenth Century. Whilst gradually expanding their roles as drivers of urban and regional development and transformation in raising global competition,²⁵ mega-events have contributed to the growth and transition of multiple Italian cities and regions. The country has hosted both Summer and Winter Games and other one-off mega-events (such as the Expo, the FIFA World Cup, and the European Capitals of Culture, according to Roche and Guala²⁶). There has been a long history of tensions between these extraordinary projects, and place-based spatial policy and planning frameworks.²⁷ In parallel, the historical spread of mega-events in Italy has resulted in the evolution of the goals, contents and typologies of connected projects, the gradual expansion of the territorial scales of host cities and regions, the recurring examples of high-cost projects and the post-event abandonment of venues.²⁸

In the phase of post-WW2 reconstruction, the Winter Games of Cortina d’Ampezzo 1956 in the Alpine area of the Dolomiti was the first in Italy. In comparison to the huge dimension and scale of more recent events, this edition involved a small number of participants, although it was the first to be broadcast to a global audience. In spatial terms, it used a limited number of venues between the Alpine town of Cortina and its immediate surrounding mountains. Despite its limited scale, the tourist legacy was extraordinary for Cortina and the Dolomiti region, contributing to their transition from an elite tourism to a mass tourism.²⁹ In the long-term, the spatial legacy has been polarized between direct phenomena – the Olympic venues such as the Ice Hockey stadium and the athlete residence (still used), the media centre designed by Edoardo Gellner (recently restored), and the bobsleigh and the ski jumping (abandoned for many years) – and indirect dynamics – the consequent expansion and gentrification of the urban fabric, due to huge growth in tourism in the Ampezzo valley.

The Summer Games of Rome 1960 was, conversely, one of the first modern mega-event editions to extend their effects at the urban scale, with a significant spatial, infrastructural, and tourist legacy for the host city.³⁰ The Games’ infrastructure was distributed across different sites of the municipal area, from the Foro Italico to the North to the EUR district to the South, including some monumental spaces in the historical centre. Multiple sport, cultural and accommodation facilities, which had been originally developed in the 1930s, were upgraded, and others were completed and added such as the Palazzo dello Sport, Palazzo dei Congressi, Stadio Flaminio, Stadio Olimpico, Stadio dei Marmi, and Stadio del Nuoto, besides the residential settlement of the Olympic Village. In addition, the development of the Games venues was integrated by new technological networks and road infrastructures, such as the ring-road axis of the Via Olimpica.³¹

In a radically different conjuncture of industrial crisis the Winter Games of Turin 2006 were taken as an opportunity for boosting the post-industrial transformation of the city and the diversification of its economy, traditionally based on car manufacturing. In the context of multiple crises at FIAT’s car plants during the 1970s and 1980s, and in partial relation to the transformation of the industrial brownfields promoted by the general urban plan approved by the Turin Municipality in 1995, the Winter Olympics 2006 were proposed as an occasion for the reconnection between the city and the Alps by spreading sport venues and accommodation facilities for the mega-event in both the urban core and the surrounding mountain valleys. Confirming an international trend of expansion of Winter Games to urban locations (from Salt Lake City 2002 to Vancouver 2010, Sochi 2014, and Beijing 2022), the 2006 edition extended at the territorial scale of the Turin provincial area. Whilst this mega-event was one driver for the post-manufacturing transition of the city’s economy, several new sport venues were over-sized, and some of them were underused or abandoned post-event. The Lingotto Olympic Village in the Turin urban core was illegally squatted for many years, and additional problems occurred in the post-event reuse of the Olympic venues in the Alpine valleys.³² Despite the goals of city-mountain reconnections, the growing disparities between urban areas and remote areas prevailed. An innovative Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) was experimentally applied. Indeed, the Games was the first application of the SEA, introduced by the European Commission in 2001 to a mega-event and in Italy. However, the process was started only after and not during the bid, so that it was not able to modify already planned projects and the mega-event deadlines were impossible to postpone.

Alongside the use of Olympics, governments at multiple scales have looked to other mega-events over time to boost modernization projects. The FIFA World Cup Italia90 was welcomed with much fanfare but many of its interventions had a relatively negative longer-term impact. Stadium infrastructure was spread across the country but territorial synergies with host cities were not considered, and it became an example of extra-costs, inefficiencies, and informal practices.³³ In other cases, projects have been generated by city authorities and have sought to use culture-based mega-events to develop place-based projects and programmes. From the 1990s the City of Genoa invested in a sequence of larger and smaller events (including the Columbus Expo 1992, the G8 Summit 2001, and the European Capital of Culture 2004) in a delicate phase of crisis for its industrial port and heavy factories, with strong demands of socio-economic diversification and spatial renovation. This event series was taken as an opportunity to promote not only the development of large-scale projects of urban transformation, but also the experimental implementation of wider processes of urban regeneration. This process mainly focused on the city centre, but also involved some peripheral neighbourhoods, combining with other spatial policies, plans, and measures (both specific, that is the European Urban programmes and the national PRUSST and Contratti di Quartiere programmes, and general, that is the 2001 urban plan and the 2004 strategic plan). furthermore, this event series produced a mix of projects mainly based on cultural and historical resources, that was similar to other ECoCs,³⁴ but that had been unexplored until that time by local institutions in the Italian and Genoese contexts.³⁵ Whilst the Expo 1992 was an opportunity for the transformation of the historical port, the G8 Summit 2001 and the European Capital of Culture 2004 enabled the reconnection between the old port and the historical city. This innovative event-driven and culture-led regeneration mostly resulted in the widespread restoration and reuse of existing spatial resources, such as public spaces, and cultural and historical heritage, with positive effects in terms of city repositioning and tourism attractiveness, and of life quality improvement for citizens and city users.³⁶

A similar approach was adopted in Milan on the occasion of the Expo 2015 where, just one year before the mega-event, the ExpoinCittà programme was conceived and implemented by the Milan Municipality and Chamber of Commerce with multiple reasons: (i) to avoid the risks of failure for the official mega-event, which were due to delays in the construction of the exhibition site; (ii) to expand to the rest of the metropolitan area the benefits of the official mega-event, that was concentrated in a specific peri-urban and new-construction venue to correspond the requirements of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) in terms of accessibility and management of visitors. Outside the BIE norms and on the example of the widespread exhibition of the Fuorisalone during the yearly Milan Design Week, the side ExpoinCittà programme was articulated in simplified procedures and through digital platforms. However, it contributed to activate spontaneous processes which, in 2015 alone, led to more than 46,000 side events to the official Expo in around 1000 sites placed in multiple clusters of the metropolitan area (in both permanent and temporary facilities, but mainly reusing existing building and open spaces). Whilst the post-event reuse of the official Expo site is still under development, until now the main legacy of the 2015 World’s Fair can be recognized in this new format, that has immediately continued in the post-event urban and metropolitan agendas.³⁷

The Milan Expo stimulated further planning discussions and programmes concentrating on: (i) the frequent risks of rigidity of counterproductive norms for mega-events in comparison to local needs; and (ii) the demands and the effects of the gradual transition of mega-event formats and approaches to include polyfunctional regeneration of the existing urban fabric. Overall, then the history of mega-events in the Italian context has been erratic and linked to modernization programmes at multiple levels. As projects have grown larger in scale, they have generated significant conflicts over the appropriate organization of spatial planning interventions and the priorities around outcomes. More utopian projects that aim to ‘connect’ very diverse places or link to wider programmes of place-boosterism have met with significant difficulties. Where projects, as in cities like Genoa, have been led by city governments and more integrated into wider planning priorities (such as over the re-use of former industrial sites) they have been generally more successful in meeting their aims and objectives and have been relatively less conflictual. In the following section we now turn to the MCWG as the latest manifestation of these longer-term historical interventions. We specifically examine the ways in which the goals of the NN have been incorporated into the bidding and planning process and their effects.

The effects of the new norm on the bidding process for the winter games 2026

The decision to apply for the MCWG was taken in the 2010s by a coalition of the national government of Italy, two regional governments of Lombardy and Veneto, two autonomous provinces of Bolzano and Trento, and nine municipal administrations spread in the four clusters. The objective was to build on previous mega-events, discussed in the section above, whilst boosting cross-city and cross-regional co-operation to deliver new infrastructure and modernizing development. It was presented as a utopian realist project – built on an imagined sense of place and fuelled by the idea that the coming of the Games could overcome historically-established political tensions and conflicts over development priorities and objectives. An application dossier was delivered by the Candidature Committee in January 2019, with notification of the award made by the IOC in June 2019. It has involved a macro-regional approach, incorporating a relatively large and multi-governed area within the Northern Italian city-region.³⁸ Rather than being focused on one governing authority or city, the project has been developed across a wider area and overseen by a temporary coalition of authorities and agencies, working on multiple scales with diverse timescales, budgets, and electorates.

Nevertheless, political conflicts between national and local authorities have been reflected in the final plans. These have integrated what were originally separate proposals from the Milan-Valtellina and Veneto Dolomites regions, and they have considered the unwillingness of authorities in Turin to collaborate, but they have not re-elaborated them through a spatial approach able to deal with trans-scalar territorial challenges (sometimes specific, sometimes common). This is compounded by the highly fragmented nature of the projects required for the Games, that include episodic interventions related to the development of sport venues, accommodation facilities, and transport infrastructure.³⁹

Four Olympic clusters in the macro-regional area are identified: the urban cluster of Milan, as global gateway to the wider region and host of indoor events; and three Alpine clusters, including the mountain sites of Cortina d’Ampezzo with Anterselva, Val di Fiemme, and Alta Valtellina (Figure 1).⁴⁰

Figure 1. The four Olympic clusters of the Milan-Cortina Winter Games 2026 (map elaborated by Elena Batunova on the basis of the Bidding Dossier).

According to the broad and unprecedent territorial scale of the Games, it involves very different places and local institutions, each with a particular set of historically-evolved outlooks and programmes of action. In political terms, the selection of these sites reflected complex alliances and agreements between different political parties in both the national government and the local/regional institutions, with the NN acting as a focus for action. Specifically, in order to reduce costs and environmental impacts, and to favour the post-event re-use of venues and infrastructures, the bidding dossier focused on existing development facilities where possible. It excluded the development of new greenfield sites and focused on the temporary use of existing venues, the reuse of abandoned venues, the transformation of brownfields, and the completion of new transport infrastructure projects already under construction.⁴¹

Despite the messages of a lower-impact Games, the extended spatiality of the mega-event plans has created its own difficulties, with fragmented venues and infrastructure connected to a multiplicity of political projects, and of urban and regional plans. As in the analysed previous mega-events, also in this case the public authorities saw the Games as an opportunity to capture public and private investments for that had been planned for year but were awaiting approval, including a long list of new roads. The NN’s emphasis on re-use and, in general, on sustainability is in direct contrast with these growth-centred agendas.⁴² In addition, the lack of a macro-regional spatial vision supporting the MCWG overlooks the places which are located in-between the four Olympic clusters and focuses mainly on the development of new hubs, with risks of increasing already existing socio-spatial disparities. Finally, even within the four clusters, the projects included in the bidding dossier did not consider the connections and relations with the specificities of their different territorial contexts (from urban to mountain terrains), thus limiting to pure Olympic venues and infrastructure.⁴³

All the Olympic projects are affected by the unknown risks that emerge during their life cycles, whatever the optimistic and utopian claims made within the NN.⁴⁴ In the case of MCWG, the combination of the Covid pandemic, and of the worldwide geopolitical conflicts and inflations, have had a structural impact on the initial plans and cost projections. Specifically, the pandemic has had an ambivalent impact. On the one hand, it has made new (unexpected) resources available to government agencies through the EU’s Recovery Plan and the related Italian Recovery Plan. At the same time, it has also created unexpected uncertainties and increased financial instability.⁴⁵ In this evolving background, and despite the NN, there were significant delays in the establishment of institutions to oversee the delivery of the Games. The Milan-Cortina 2026 Foundation was only instituted in December 2019. Moreover, a purposeful public agency, the Società Infrastrutture, was only established in November 2021, following protracted negotiations over costs and liabilities between the National Olympic Committees, the Italian Government, the Lombardy and Veneto Regions, the Bolzano and Trento Autonomous Provinces, and the Milan and Cortina Municipalities.

At the time of writing (December 2023), an extended territorial plan for the mega-event legacy (announced for the end of 2022) has not been approved yet. In line with the requirements of the NN, authorities have given details over the use of existing resources, the acceleration of infrastructure projects that were already planned or under construction, and the potentials for the post-event reuse of the Olympic venues. However, there has been little critical reflection over the longer-term sustainability for the re-use of the sites, nor much concern over how the extraordinary spending for the mega-event connects with wider-scale spatial visions and plans, beginning with the postponement of the SEA and its application to the only Olympic facilities.⁴⁶

Because of the delays in starting the work national, regional and local institutions have been more focused on the day-to-day delivery of the necessary venues and infrastructure in time for 2026. The standardized NN agreements have failed to overcome the structural difficulties that OGs pose for hosting agents, especially over the lack of flexibility in fixed timescales.⁴⁷ Furthermore, by 2022–2023 it was increasingly clear that some venues could not be completed for the 2026 deadline, so that the involved public institutions are fighting against time to find alternative solutions – for example seeking support from other cities, including Turin, Saint Moritz in Switzerland, or Innsbruck in Austria. Also in this case, the over-riding requirement to get the Games done undermines the possibilities for more strategic thinking and direction.⁴⁸

Urban development in Milan and the building of the Olympic village

In this section, we focus on how broader trends and constraints of the MCWG have been manifest in one particular example: the Milan urban core and the building of the Olympic Village, currently under development as part of a major transformation project in the south-east neighbourhood of the city known as Porta Romana. During the bidding phase, the City of Milan presented MCWG as an opportunity to exploit its already well-known brands and to associate the city with another successful, international event after the Expo2015.⁴⁹ The hosting of indoor sports events was proposed with the ambition of building principally on existing sites and venues, thereby lowering the costs and drawing on the principles of the NN. These were: the new PalaItalia hockey arena in the Santa Giulia brownfield, SE of the centre, and the existing Mediolanum Forum arena for figure skating (both confirmed after the mega-event awarding, but delayed); the existing Palasharp hockey area (then deleted because too expensive and impossible to complete in time to the Olympic deadline); three complementary existing venues, such as the Meazza Stadium for the opening ceremony, the Piazza Duomo for the medal plaza, and the Milan Fairground for the media centre (recently integrated by the relocation of the speed skating ice rink, originally planned in the Val di Fiemme mountain cluster, in the Trentino province); and public transport infrastructure, including the completion of the new metro line M4, gradually opening since 2022, and the construction of the new south-east tramway line that is currently delayed (see Figure 2).⁵⁰

Figure 2. The venues and the infrastructures in the Milan urban cluster of the Milan-Cortina Winter Games 2026 (map elaborated by Elena Batunova on the basis of the Bidding Dossier).

Delivery delays have resulted from a combination governance, financial, and timing factors. As discussed above, the MCWG 2026 reflects a longer-term approach by public administrations in Milan in boosting its urban development through mega-events, stretching back to the nineteenth Century. These have had a marked impact on the city’s urban form and the contemporary approaches of government actors. The MCWG 2026 formed part of a strategy for extending the positive legacy of the earlier Expo 2015 that sought to accelerate and internationalize real estate developments across the city. In 2016, Giuseppe Sala, the former CEO of the Expo’s management company, was elected Mayor (in 2021) and this acted as a further springboard for a mega-event focused urban development policy. Despite much criticism of its negative environmental and social impacts, city authorities highlighted their role in supporting the economic and cultural regeneration of Milan, and its development as a tourist destination.⁵¹

All the interventions planned for the MCWG 2026 have been framed by a city-wide urban plan, the Piano di Governo del Territorio (PGT) approved in 2019.⁵² However, despite the presence of the PGT, the coordination of new forms of development has become a complex task, made less cohesive by the requirement to link projects directly to the delivery of the Games. The most significant project is that of the Olympic Village within the former Porta Romana railway yard. The project is typical of new forms of financialised urban development happening in the city (and beyond). The agreement for the site was signed in 2017 by the City of Milan and the national railway company (Ferrovie dello Stato) to boost revenues through urban development projects on seven under-used or vacant railway yards along the city railway belt.⁵³

In May 2020, the guidelines for an international competition were published that included the construction of the new Olympic Village and its post-event transformation into housing for students, as well as the partial undergrounding of the railway line and the development of a new train-metro interchange hub. In November 2020, three investment companies Coima, Covivio, and the charitable foundation Prada Holdings purchased the area for €180million through the establishment of the Porta Romana Property Investment Fund. In March 2021, the project was awarded to a partnership promoting the project called Parco Romana, including Outcomist, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Plp Architecture, Carlo Ratti Associati, Arup, Systematica, and Land. After the public consultation (April-May 2021), the request for the building permission was released (October 2021), and the special implementation plan was approved (May 2022).

The Olympic Village of 34,850sqm is mainly concentrated in the south-western side facing the Fondazione Prada building, a landmark cultural facility in Milan, designed by OMA and opened in 2015 by reusing a former distillery. One of the main goals of the project is to overcome the current physical and social barriers between the historically compact urban nucleus, to the North, and the external peripheries and edges to the South, through a huge central park and an articulated network of public and semi-public spaces, including open spaces.⁵⁴ The building of the Athletes’ Village is therefore designed to both meet the short-term needs of the Games and also provide new social housing as part of a wider transformation and regeneration project.

In response to the NN agenda it is claimed that ‘the project was studied right from the start in its post-Olympics configuration (…) minimising reconversion works and environmental impacts’.⁵⁵ Within the wider Parco Romana masterplan, the project of the Olympic Village has been designed by the US-based firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) and received building permission in December 2022. This firm, although long-established, reflects a new breed of urban regeneration and planning specialists. They provide a full suite of expertise for projects, including design and regulatory/legal expertise, and have used the masterplan to support the rolling-out of an ‘outcome investing’ approach ‘with the aim of being able to contribute to a positive social impact in the community’.⁵⁶

The involvement of the investment fund Coima will also have a significant impact on the use of the new housing and exemplifies the new landscapes of finance within which Olympic projects are being implemented. Coima describes itself as ‘a leading platform for the investment, development, and management of real estate assets on behalf of institutional investors’.⁵⁷ It manages 27 real estate funds across Italy that have invested in over 150 properties with a combined value in excess of €7billion, including some of Milan’s most iconic buildings in the new financial district known as Porta Nuova.⁵⁸ It reflects broader changes in the financial landscapes of urban investment discussed earlier in the paper. It possesses multiple subsidiaries, one of which is the Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) that specializes in projects in Milan. The REIT actively manages ‘a quality real estate portfolio capable of satisfying the present and future demand from tenants’.⁵⁹ As of 2023, it has become the biggest source of housing finance in the city and has partnered with a consortium of housing co-operatives and other public agencies to provide up to 25% of Milan’s social housing, or approximately 40,000 homes.

The Porta Romana Property Investment Fund, a conglomerate of the three investors (Coima, Covivio, and Prada Holding), obtained approval for the construction of the Olympic Village in January 2023 with a completion deadline of July 2025, when the site will be temporarily handed over to the Milan-Cortina Foundation.⁶⁰ The source of finance for the scheme originates from Intesa Sanpaolo, an Italian-based bank that specializes in the funding of infrastructure and urban development projects. Once the Games is over, the units will be converted into Purpose Built Student Accommodation ‘with the provision of 1700 beds helping address a major shortage of high-quality student accommodation in Milan’.⁶¹ The City of Milan is supporting these interventions in two ways. First, it is giving planning consents in relatively quick time to enable the project to deliver on the timetable of the MCOG. Second, it is also selling state assets to the investors and developers to create investment spaces.

This public support for the implementation of the Olympic Village will help developers and investors to change the area: for instance, by building market confidence and giving guarantees that state funds and regulatory powers will be used directly and indirectly to ensure that the development goes ahead – what Flyvbjerg et al. refer to as a ‘blank check’ approach to the financing of projects.⁶² Despite the existence of a common framework in the 2019 PGT, there remains a time gap between the fixed deadline for the Olympic Village, due to the rigid Winter Games timeline (construction before February 2025 and event celebration in February 2026), and the variable deadlines for the implementation of the other plots of the Parco Romana masterplan. In addition, there remain unresolved questions over the contributions the project is making to the regeneration of surrounding neighbourhoods according to ecological and social needs.

The standardization process defined by the NN does not lend itself to a more integrated approach to territorial and spatial planning. Instead, the Olympic Village risks to contribute to the implementation of a growing fragmentation of projects across the city and a realignment of urban regeneration priorities, so that they meet the commercial needs of potential investors, rather than the carefully-planned out needs of the urban residents and businesses. Moreover, they risk exacerbating existing social and spatial inequalities and ongoing gentrification processes in this part of the city.⁶³ Rather than replacing historical place-based tensions and contributing to a new, more consensual and delivery-focused form of governance, the introduction of the NN is ‘landing’ in a context where the Olympic project is being increasingly elided with financialised forms of property investment. In line with the NN, there is a limited amount of new public spending being promised in contrast to the Paris 2024 and London 2012 experiences with only just an additional €35 million to cover the growing costs of inflation and energy price increases, but these are far below the levels requested by previous city administrations. Moreover synchronizing the impacts of the Games infrastructure with existing projects and plan, as imagined in the NN, has become more and more challenging at time in which the financing of urban projects as a whole has become increasingly expensive and difficult.

Conclusion

The introduction of the New Norm (NN) by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) reflects a broader recognition that Olympic Games have become so costly and controversial that local administrations are increasingly reluctant to bid as hosts.⁶⁴ As we have discussed through the paper, it is imagined that the complex development and planning histories that exist in candidate cities and regions are to blame for the failures associated with previous Games. The NN is presented as a utopian solution, made more effective as it is paradoxically grounded in a simultaneous expression of ‘realism’ in understanding how governance should work. It promises to implement standardized and tried-and-tested frameworks to ensure that projects are completed on time and within budget. In short, it is designed to overcome the messiness and complexities of places through the creation of pre-planned and investment-friendly development spaces. In so doing it reflects a broader strand of thinking about major projects in which it is imagined that fast development can take place through the application of abstract methods, with little requirement to engage in slower, deliberative planning.⁶⁵ In multiple contexts, planners and policy makers now equate expedited development with better outcomes.⁶⁶ Increased standardization is intended to create institutional structures that overcome the ‘constraints’ associated with place.

The case study of the Milan-Cortina Winter Games 2026 indicates some of the limits found in the rolling-out of utopian governance models. It has drawn on a trans-scalar historical perspective that has analysed the features, changes, and transition dynamics in more recent European Olympic Games and in longer term Italian mega-events. Accordingly, it has reflected on the evolving conditions that shape the form and character of urban projects, and it has highlighted the challenges that policy-makers face in developing integrated programmes of action across multiple territories. Moreover, the growing financialisation of planning systems (on the one hand) and the demands for territorialization expressed by local stakeholders⁶⁷ (on the other) add further complexity to the messiness of the development processes in which the Olympic Games has ‘landed’.

In order to understand these trends, we have argued for a greater historical awareness. The transition of Italian Olympics – from more concentrated development projects in 1956 and 1960, to a more regional approach grounded on the reconnection at the provincial scale in 2006 and at macro-regional scale in 2026 – can be understood as resulting from a combination of elements: (i) the evolving spatial phenomena and dynamics from industrial development to post-industrial transformation of the country (in relation to processes of globalization and growing financialisation); (ii) the raising awareness about mega-event opportunities and risks (from past editions, national and international); (iii) the changing norms at both the worldwide and local levels (from the IOC’s NN, to the EU’s SEA). Whilst the MCWG 2026 should be considered at the intersections between these different components emerging in an historical trajectory, the unprecedent macro-regional scale further and newly challenges the specific relations between the Games and the multi-faceted articulation of its hosts (one metropolitan city and multiple alpine towns).

The findings highlight areas for further research. First, the growing financialisation of planning systems and urban projects have significant consequences for how Olympic Games and other megaprojects are implemented and governed. The NN seeks to set standards and frameworks to encourage the attraction of private capital in an expedited manner. However, such approaches carry the danger of failing to capture the complex and multi-scalar evolution of investment landscapes; that is, the growing power of investors and developers to shape projects to their needs and timeframes. Taming such processes will be a major challenge for all mega-event planning. Second, the MCWG example demonstrates the continuing importance of place and territorial politics and economics on the rolling-out of an Olympics. The selection of sites and venues continues to be shaped by already existing policy-frameworks and trajectories. Programmes to deliver necessary infrastructure have not to date been integrated by effective processes and projects of territorialization, nor between neither within the four Olympic clusters.⁶⁸ The reference in the Bidding Dossier to the existing urban and regional plans of the host cities and regions, as required by the NN, underplays the experiences of the Milan Expo 2015, in which the city authorities claimed multiple ‘successes’ by downplaying and/or postponing more difficult questions over longer-term legacies.⁶⁹ Whilst rhetorically the NN seems to have brought about greater cohesion and consistency in the governance process, the experiences of the MCWG demonstrate the structural difficulties that emerge when international governing bodies seek to implement projects on places.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mike Raco

Mike Raco is currently Head of School in The Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, where he is professor of Urban Governance and Development. His fields of research include: human geography, urban and regional planning, policy and administration, banking, finance and investment, and real estate and valuation services.

Stefano Di Vita

Stefano Di Vita is researcher of Urban Planning at the Politecnico di Milano, Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, where he conducts research and teaching activities on planning processes, tools, and projects of urban and regional transformation and regeneration, including temporary events.

Notes

1 Müller, Gogishvili, and Wolfe, The Structural Deficit of the Olympics and the World Cup.

2 IOC, Olympic Agenda 2020.

3 IOC, Olympic Agenda 2020, 3.

4 Flyvbjerg, Stewart, and Budzier, The Oxford Olympics Study 2016.

5 IOC, Olympic Agenda 2020, 5.

6 Di Vita, and Morandi, Mega-Events and Legacies in Post-Metropolitan Spaces.

7 Rancière, The Senses and Uses of Utopia.

8 Flyvbjerg, Budzier, and Lunn, “Regression to the Tail,” 233.

9 De Magistris and Di Vita, “L’esperienza delle Olimpiadi di Atene 2004”; Kassens-Noor, Planning Olympic Legacies; Petsimeris, “Citius, Altius, Forties.”

10 Owens and Ward, Play the Game.

11 Smith, De-Risking East London; Viehoff and Poynter, Mega-Event Cities; Gaeta and Curci, I giochi olimpici di Londra e la rigenerazione dell'East End.

12 Raco, “Delivering Flagship Projects in an Era of Regulatory Capitalism.”

13 Hidalgo, Ann in Olympic Games Delivery Authority, 2019: p.5

14 Paris 2024, 2017.

15 Paris 2024, 2022.

16 Delaplace and Shut, Hosting the Olympic Games.

17 Delevska, Cherro Osorio, and Van Nguyen, Not All Fun and Games.

18 Raco, “Delivering Flagship Projects in an Era of Regulatory Capitalism,”177.

19 Rancière, “The Senses and Uses of Utopia.”

20 Viehoff and Poynter, Mega-event Cities; Gruenau and Horne, Mega-Events and Globalization.

21 Alami, “State Theory in the Age of State Capitalism 3.0?”

22 Germán, and Bernstein, Land Value Return.

23 Flyvbjerg, “Curbing Optimism Bias and Strategic Misrepresentation in Planning”; Kobrin, Managing Political Risk Assessment.

24 Livingstone and Sanderson, “All Grown Up?”.

25 Caramellino, De Magistris, Deambrosis, “Reconceptualising Mega-Events and Urban Transformations in the Twentieh Century.”

26 Roche, Mega-Events and Modernity; Guala, Mega eventi.

27 Bisciglia, et al., “Grandi eventi”.

28 Basso, Grandi eventi e politiche urbane.

29 Gastaldi, “Grandi eventi in Italia dal secondo dopoguerra ai primi anni 2000.”

30 Chalkley, and Essex, “Urban Development Through Hosting International Events.”

31 Batunova and Di Vita, “Olympics and Urban Form.”

32 Dansero, Mela, and Rossignolo, “Legacies of Turin 2006 Eight Years On.”

33 Camerin and Longato, “Urban Impacts of Spain 1982 and Italy 1990 FIFA World Cup.”

34 García and Cox, European Capitals of Culture.

35 Jones, Cultural Mega-Events.

36 Gastaldi, “Grandi eventi in Italia dal secondo dopoguerra ai primi anni 2000”; Guala, Mega eventi.

37 Gaeta and Di Vita, “Planning Disaster, Successful Event, and Uncertain Future.”; Di Vita, “Cultural Events and Heritage Policy for the Milan Expo 2015.”

38 Perulli and Pichierri, La crisi italiana nel mondo globale.

39 Arcidiacono and Di Vita, Beyond the 2026 Winter Olympic Games.

40 Bengo et al., “Setting the Foundations for a Quali-Quantitative Impact”.

41 Batunova and Di Vita, Olympics and Urban Form.

42 Lopes dos Santos et al., “The Long-Standing Issue of Mobility at the Olympics.”

43 Arcidiacono and Di Vita, Beyond the 2026 Winter Olympic Games.

44 Flyvbjerg, Budzier, and Lunn, Regression to the Tail.

45 Müller, Gogishvili, and Wolfe, “The Structural Deficit of the Olympics and the World Cup”; Müller et al., An Evaluation of the Sustainability of the Olympic Games.

46 Bazzanella, Bichler, and Schnitzer, “Collaboration and Meta-Organisation in Event Tourism”; Casanova, Ombre sulla neve.

47 Flyvbjerg, Budzier, and Lunn, “Regression to the Tail.”

48 Roda, “Milano-Cortina 2026”.

49 Milan-Cortina 2026 Bidding Committee, Milan-Cortina 2026 Candidate City Olympic Winter Games..

50 Bengo et al., “Setting the foundations for a Quali-Quantitative Impact Assessment”.

51 Jones, Di Vita, and Ponzini, “Changing Mega–Events’ Spatial Strategies and Cultural Policy.”

52 Comune di Milano, Piano di Governo del Territorio.

53 Comune di Milano, Gruppo Ferrovie dello Stato, Scali ferroviari.

54 Comune di Milano. Zona Speciale Scalo Romana.

55 Barletta, “Scalo di Porta Romana (MI),” 3.

56 Coima SGR et al., Coima SGR, Covivo and Prada Holding, 1.

57 Coima SGR et al., 3.

58 Ibid.

59 Coimares, Annual Report 2020, 12.

60 Coima SGR et al., Coima Unveils Major Expansion into Social Housing.

61 Coima SGR et al., Works for the Olympic Village can Officially Start, 2.

62 Flyvbjerg, Budzier, and Lunn, “Regression to the Tail.”

63 Scalo di Porta Romana, Porta Romana Railway Yard; Scalo di Porta Romana, Dossier conclusivo del percorso di consultazione.

64 Flyvbjerg, Budzier, and Lunn, “Regression to the Tail.”; Gold and Gold, Olympic Cities; Kassens-Noor, Los Angeles and the Summer Olympic Games; Jones, Di Vita, and Ponzini, Changing Mega–Events’ Spatial Strategies and Cultural Policy.

65 Flyvbjerg, and Gardner, How Big Things Get Done.

66 Airey and Doughty, Rethinking the Planning System for the 21st Century.

67 Lauermann, “The Urban Politics of Mega-Events”; Casanova, Ombre sulla neve.

68 Arcidiacono and Di Vita, Beyond the 2026 Winter Olympic Games.

69 Basso and Di Vita, “The Planning and Governance of the Expo 2015”.