Post-event Outcomes and the Post-modern Turn: The Olympics and Urban Transformations

Abstract

The Olympics are analysed from an urban perspective as an event that has an impact on cities beyond sport. The focus of the paper is on post-event outcomes and particularly on Olympic-related facilities and how they are used once the Olympics are over. The 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics serves as the primary illustration of the processes described. The transformation of the urban order is discussed in terms of the post-modern turn and it is shown how the Olympics are affected by and contributes to the support of the shift toward leisure consumption as a dominant theme in the new urban symbolic economy. Issues such as place marketing, urban restructuring, urban regionalization, surveillance, and social exclusion are also related to post-Olympic outcomes.