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Abstract
The rhetoric employed when cities bid for the right to host mega-events like the Olympic Games suggests that benefits will include improved infrastructure, investment in city infrastructure, and regeneration of neglected urban areas. However, the legacy of mega-events has historically been mixed; while some cities have been recognized for their development efforts, many others have been vilified for their subsequent actions, or lack thereof. The term legacy itself is, however, problematic; it presents a one-sided view of positive effects, without adequate consideration of downside risk in bidding. This research draws on interviews from people involved in six different mega-events and illustrates the challenges of addressing legacy with a variety of examples, including a detailed look at the London 2012 Olympic Games’ legacy negotiations regarding the use of the Olympic Stadium to gain insight into how legacy opportunities are developed. Drawing on the concept of uncomfortable knowledge, the dispute over the legacy use of the Olympic Stadium is used to examine the mixed perspectives of the different parties involved in decisions over mega-event legacies. We conclude by suggesting that unacknowledged interests, which remain constructively ambiguous during the bidding phase, create the opportunity for uncomfortable knowledge to arise in the planning process. The use of uncomfortable knowledge as a theoretical lens provides a useful construct to focus on the boundaries and limitations of knowledge in planning mega-events.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Allison Stewart is an Associate Fellow in the BT Centre for Major Programme Management. Allison completed her DPhil at the Saïd Business School in 2012, where she was supervised by Professor Steve Rayner, Director of the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (InSIS), and by Professor Bent Flyvbjerg, Director of the BT Centre. Her doctoral research focused on the role of ignorance in planning and delivering major programmes, with an empirical focus on the Olympic and Commonwealth Games.
Allison currently works in Capital Projects at a major international company, and previously worked at a number of global consulting organizations including Deloitte and Accenture, where she focused on organization design and change management for private and public sector clients.
Allison was the recipient of both the BT Centre’s DPhil studentship and the InSIS DPhil studentship. While earning her DPhil, Allison was also awarded a Lectureship in Management at Christ Church, teaching General Management to Economics and Management undergraduate students.
Allison also completed her MSc in Management Research at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, where she received the Dean’s certificate for best overall performance in her MSc class and was jointly awarded the Dan Gowler prize for best MSc dissertation. She also received the prize for best poster presentation in the MSc as judged by faculty and peers.
Allison earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree with a major in organizational psychology from McGill University in Canada.
Steve Rayner is James Martin Professor of Science and Civilization at Oxford University’s School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography and Director of the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, where he also co-directs the Oxford Programme for the Future of Cities and the Oxford Geoengineering Programme, both supported by the Oxford Martin School. He is also Honorary Professor of Climate Change and Society at the University of Copenhagen and Senior Fellow at The Breakthrough Institute, a non-partisan environmental NGO based in California’s Bay Area. He previously held senior research positions in two US National Laboratories and has taught at leading US universities, including Cornell, Virginia Tech, and Columbia.
Trained as a political anthropologist (PhD University College London 1980), he describes himself as an 'undisciplined' scholar, committed to changing the world through social science.
He has served on various US, UK, and international bodies addressing science, technology, and the environment, including Britain’s Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Royal Society’s Working Group on Climate Geoengineering. Until 2008, he also directed the national Science in Society Research Programme of the UK Economic and Social Research Council. He is the Founding and General Editor of the Science in Society book series published by Earthscan.
He has received numerous awards, including the 25th Homer N. Calver Award from the Environment Section of the American Public Health Association, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Director’s Award for R&D Excellence and two Martin Marietta Energy Systems Awards for groundbreaking work in risk analysis and global climate change policy analysis respectively. He was included in the 2008 Smart List by Wired Magazine as 'one of the 15 people the next US President should listen to'.
Notes
1. See Roche, Mega-Events and Modernity and Horne and Manzenreiter, Sports Mega-Events.
2. Andranovich, Burbank, and Heying, “Olympic Cities,” 113–31.
3. Roche, Mega-Events and Modernity, 1.
4. Chalkley and Essex, “Urban Development,” 369–94.
5. Andranovich, Burbank, and Heying, “Olympic Cities,” 113–31.
6. Essex and Chalkley, “Mega-Sporting Events,” 201–32.
7. Chalkley and Essex, “Urban Development,” 391.
8. Horne and Manzenreiter, “Sports Mega-Events,” 9.
9. See also Horne, “Four ‘Knowns’,” 81–96.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Andranovich, Burbank, and Heying, “Olympic Cities,” 113–31.
13. Sherwin, “Olympic Games Have Put Off London's Tourists.”
14. Preuss, “Economic Dimension of the Olympic Games,” 1.
15. Chalkley and Essex, “Urban Development,” 369–94.
16. Malfas, Theodoraki, and Houlihan, “Impacts,” 209.
17. Vigor, Mean, and Tims, After the Gold Rush, 3.
18. Cull, “Legacy of the Shanghai,” 99.
19. See Hiller, “Post-event Outcomes,” 317–32 and Horne and Manzenreiter, “Sports Mega-Events.”
20. See note 19 above.
21. Whitson and Horne, “Underestimated Costs,” 73.
22. See Stewart, “Knowledge Games.”
23. Punch, Introduction to Social Research and Miles and Huberman, Qualitative Data Analysis.
24. Yin, Applications of Case Study Research.
25. Hiller, “Post-event outcomes,” 317–32.
26. Leopkey and Parent, “(Neo) institutionalization of Legacy,” 437–55.
27. Session S-24; (note that this is a unique identifier that denotes a session attended by the researcher).
28. Interview I-83; (note that this is a unique identifier that denotes an interview conducted by the researcher).
29. Sunstein, “Incompletely Theorized Agreements,” 1733–72.
30. See also Verweij and Thompson, Clumsy Solutions.
31. Andranovich, Burbank, and Heying, “Olympic Cities,” 113–31.
32. Interview I–64.
33. Burton, “Olympic Games Host City Marketing,” 35–45.
34. Rittel and Webber, “General Theory of Planning,” 155–69.
35. Rayner, “Wicked Problems, Clumsy Solutions.”
36. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer; Douglas, How Institutions Think; and Douglas, “Forgotten Knowledge,” 13–30.
37. Rayner, “Uncomfortable Knowledge,” 107–25.
38. See note 37 above.
39. Rayner, “Uncomfortable Knowledge,” 5.
40. Proctor, “Agnotology,” 1–36.
41. Cohen, States of Denial; McGoey, “On the Will to Ignorance,” 212–35; and Douglas, How Institutions Think.
42. Rayner, Lach, and Ingram, “Weather Forecasts,” 197–227.
43. Interview I–17.
44. Preuss, Economics of Staging the Olympics and Horne and Manzenreiter, “Sports Mega-Events.”
45. Tversky and Kahneman, “Judgment under Uncertainty,” 1124–31.
46. Flyvbjerg, Holm, and Buhl, “Underestimating Costs,” 279–95.
47. Session S-17.
48. Interview I–91.
49. Zerubavel, Elephant in the Room, 3.
50. Session S-17.
51. Interview I–89.
52. Flyvbjerg, Bruzelius, and Rothengatter, Megaprojects and Risk.
53. Minton, Ground Control, xiii.
54. National Archives, London Olympic Games.
55. Ibid., 4.1.
56. Baptista, Regimes of Exception.
57. Ibid., 1; see also Agamben, “State of Exception,” 135–45.
58. Baptista, Practices of Exception, 50.
59. Cull, “Legacy of the Shanghai,” 100.
60. See also COHRE, Fair Play for Housing Rights.
61. Ibid., 11.
62. Ibid., 10.
63. Malfas, Theodoraki, and Houlihan, Impacts.
64. Porter et al., “Planning Displacement,” 395–418.
65. See also Raco and Tunney, “Visibilities and Invisibilities,” 2069–91.
66. Greene, “Staged Cities,” 163.
67. Chalkley and Essex, “Urban Development,” 369–94.
68. Interview I-64.
69. Cashman, Impact of the Games.
70. Cashmore, Making Sense of Sports, 446.
71. Chalkley and Essex, “Urban Development,” 382.
72. Ibid.
73. Canadian Olympic Association, Rapport de la Commission.
74. Vadnais, “Montreal Olympics 1976.”
75. Commonwealth Games Federation, CGF Evaluation Commission, 8.
76. Majumdar and Mehta, Sellotape Legacy.
77. Interview I-22.
78. Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Audit Report No. 6 of 2011–2012.
79. Interview I-99.
80. Olympic Games Study Commission, Report to the 115th IOC Session.
81. Ibid.
82. Leopkey and Parent, “(Neo) institutionalization of Legacy,” 452.
83. Interview I-22.
84. London Bid Committee, London Candidature File, 19.
85. IOC, Report of the IOC Evaluation Commission.
86. London Bid Committee, London Candidature File, 23.
87. Interview I-104.
88. IOC, IOC Evaluation Commission, 72.
89. Interview I-104.
90. DCMS, Construction Completes.
91. Interview I-104.
92. Slater, “IOC Reopens 2012 Stadium Debate.”
93. McIntosh, “Olympic Host City Bid Process.”
94. Slater, “IOC Reopens 2012 Stadium Debate.”
95. GLA, Legacy United? 7.
96. Kent, “Tottenham Go Against Rivals.”
97. Kelso, “Olympic Stadium.”
98. Ibid.
99. Interview I-104.
100. London 2012 Organising Committee, About the Venues.
101. House of Lords Select Committee , Report of Session 2013–14, 6.
102. Interview I-104.
103. Ibid.
104. Interview I-105.
105. Interview I-104.
106. Ibid.
107. Ibid.
108. Interview I-105.
109. Ibid.
