South Africa under FIFA's reign: The World Cup's contribution to urban development

Abstract

When South Africa hosted the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the move to stage this mega-event at the southern tip of the African continent was lauded as a timely acknowledgement of the growing importance of the ‘global south’. Most of the fears that had been raised before the kick-off proved immaterial once the event was under way. Nine host cities enjoyed the international spotlight; the new and revamped stadiums were the focus of the media. Behind the scenes, however, more infrastructure had to be created, locational decisions taken and structures of governance honed. That this process was thoroughly influenced by FIFA's wishes can be demonstrated by focusing on a few strategic elements, such as the site selection for stadiums and fan parks. The findings in this article sustain the dominant argument in mega-event research: urban development and governance in the host cities are severely affected by these events.

Keywords:

• mega-event
• urban governance
• festivalisation
• Cape Town
• 2010 FIFA World Cup

1. Introduction

For the world outside South Africa, especially the western world, there were two main reasons why South Africa was bound to fail to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup successfully: the stadiums would not be ready, and the high crime rate would dissuade potential international visitors from sharing the experience, since only fearless football fans would consider a trip to South Africa (Korth & Rolfes, 2010). As it turned out, both fears were proven to be unfounded: there were no troubles with the stadiums and no major criminal incidents (a detailed analysis may add a deeper profile to this statement, but will not change it). This is not to say that the discourse of fear might not have had an effect, for example on the number of international visitors (up to 480 000 World Cup tourists had been expected – see Allmers & Maennig, 2009, whereas the official figure was 309 000 – Business iAfrica, 2010). From an urban studies perspective, however, there is more to consider when assessing the impact of mega-events. This paper highlights a number of issues that come with the package of hosting these events, relying inter alia on Cape Town as an example.

For urban researchers, especially those informed by the idea of ‘festivalisation’ as an interpretation of event driven urban development strategies (Häußermann & Siebel, 1993), two areas of interest are the acceleration of all kinds of building and infrastructural projects a host city might have in the pipeline, and the streamlining of urban governance to the extent that democratic participation is significantly reduced. Increasingly in the past decades, these aspects have carried greater weight. A third area is the business interests of the ‘content providers’ (and also of the hosts, for example in tourism), which have grown to much larger dimensions in the past 20 years – these must be acknowledged more thoroughly in the analysis of mega-events. In this case, since it was FIFA that came to the party (which of course was thrown only on behalf of FIFA), these interests translated into specific demands, for example regarding the allocation of stadiums. And a fourth area to be considered is the socio-political side of hosting the World Cup – including its spatial reflection.

To focus on these four areas I use an adaptation of the concept of ‘festivalisation’, explained in the following section. I then contextualise the post-apartheid urban challenges to set the scene for a discussion of how appropriate this perspective is for talking about South Africa. Against this backdrop, I summarise the effects of the event in all four areas of interest, with an emphasis on Cape Town.

2. The concept of ‘festivalisation’

The expectation of economic and symbolic gains from the hosting of big events is no recent development, and the strategy of using an event's impact to propel urban development has been discussed in urban research for a number of years. In their introduction to a collection of essays, Häußermann and Siebel (1993) introduce the term ‘Festivalisierung’ (‘festivalisation’) to refer to the strategy of using festivals and other public events to attract visitors to a city in order to boost its image and contribute to its economy. They state that manifest considerations of urban policy are the rationale behind the games and the fun they bring (Häußermann & Siebel, 1993:8). In some instances, and increasingly so, the events themselves become the pinnacle of urban development. This trend is said to have been triggered by inter-urban competition, which in turn is seen as an effect of the deregulation of the capital markets, i.e. that competition forces the big metropolises to sharpen their profiles in order to be more visible and more attractive to private sector global investors, given that the role of the nation state is perceived as becoming weaker.

Additionally, but linked to these aspects of the globalisation process, cities' governments in the old industrial states have been facing the challenge of tighter budgets. In this challenging situation, the hosting of big events has proved to be a strategy for tapping national funding again and, even better, for overcoming the traditionally limited scope of action of municipalities (Häußermann & Siebel, 1993:14).

During the past decade, the high relevance especially of mega-events (only the biggest, i.e. the Football World Cups, the Summer Olympics and the EXPOs, being considered as such) as a kick-starter for urban development has been reiterated (Ehrenberg & Kruse, 2000; Häußermann et al., 2008). But these events have evolved, become even more expensive to host and been increasingly questioned by the public, especially in Europe (the critique often focused on the spending of taxpayers' money for a seemingly non-essential purpose). Parallel to the difficulties of finding suitable and willing hosts in the North, more and more candidates from the South have been bidding for the hosting of mega-events. To a certain degree, the right to host the World Cup or the Olympics is perceived as a symbolic award, a token of the host's closeness to the world's top nations. In this light it should be considered whether the prevailing interpretations of mega-events apply to the same degree to the new hosts in the South, as Matheson and Baade point out (2004), and also to what extent we should consider the specific dynamic of interaction between the respective host (the ‘local’ level) and the content provider (the ‘global’ level) (Cornelissen, 2007). Some of these considerations are explored in the following sections.

3. South Africa's urban challenges: Contextualising the festival

A country that was one of the world's pariah states only two decades ago has now become a FIFA 2010 World Cup host, a status that brings specific urban development challenges for the host cities (Pillay et al., 2009; Haferburg & Steinbrink, 2010). For spatially informed social scientists, the system of apartheid (1948–94), created as the evolution of a settler colonial set-up, exerts a certain fascination: it is a prime example for anyone involved in urban studies of how spatial structures (re-)create the social sphere and vice versa (Haferburg, 2007). As in other totalitarian systems, a grand scheme informed all aspects of life. Apartheid's monument, however, was not a monadic icon but a permeating pattern of built fragmentation all over South Africa's cityscapes. The centralist state enforced not only the (spatial) distinction of population groups, but all urban functions as well: all commercial, educational, cultural and recreational areas above a certain level of sophistication were concentrated in those areas defined as ‘white’ (Western, 1981; Robinson, 1996). Importantly, to enable the inner-urban implementation of this blueprint, the government also tried to control the influx of rural migrants.

We have to consider this spatial pattern since it has challenged municipal level post-apartheid governments to this day. Host cities' problems were big enough without even contemplating the extra work required for the World Cup. Deficits in housing and difficulties in creating jobs close to home, as well as huge traffic problems, can be traced directly to urban policies of the past. Spatially, most urban development problems are manifested in the former ‘non-white’, and still poorer, neighbourhoods. This is as true for the built environment, for example traffic infrastructure (Harrison et al., 2008), as it is for matters of social cohesion. Our focus must then be on the possibility of a mega-event against this background.

Of course, over the past two decades patterns of post-apartheid urban development have emerged as well. In fact, the transformation started even earlier. After 1985 the system of influx control was no longer maintained. In 1991 both pillars of residential segregation, the Group Areas Act and the Population Registration Act, were removed – since the early 1980s they had shown cracks from a ‘greying’ process, especially in Johannesburg's inner city. When the first free elections took place in 1994, and the transformation of local government gained momentum with the municipal elections of 1995, it became clear that a new urban age had begun in South Africa. In all of its big cities, the number of inhabitants increased significantly (see Figure 1). But mastering the consequences of this very dynamic process (e.g. a constant housing backlog in spite of huge state driven building activities since the mid-1990s) is just another challenge – overcoming the spatial fragmentation and negotiating the deficits in social cohesion are no lesser tasks.

Figure 1: Population growth in South Africa's biggest cities (since 1950)

Urban planning in the early days of post-apartheid South Africa created ambitious spatial strategies in response to the aforementioned problems. Among these were the amalgamation of the formerly segregated areas of local government, investments in intra-urban development corridors, and the creation of new economic nodes and housing projects of the reconstruction and development programme (RDP) (Watson, 2002; Harrison et al., 2003). But it became more and more apparent that the cities' local trajectories were framed in (and limited by) the broader political context of the ANC's market-oriented GEAR (growth, employment and redistribution) project, started in 1996. Urban development was no longer supposed to be state driven (be it on the national or municipal level), but was supposed to be ‘developmental’ in a corporate sense. Holistic visions of a South African city of the future went out of fashion, and disappeared as soon as they were labelled ‘blueprint approaches’ – a term which of course was identified with not only modernist town planning but the apartheid city as well. Spatial planning was now meant to be more process oriented (Watson, 2002). Then again, the invitation of international competition led to a downturn of the local economic base. But neither the postmodern paraphernalia of the neoliberal turn nor the participatory guise it wore (e.g. the IDP process) could prevent the new urban crisis in South Africa: continued and new (gated and peri-urban) economic segregation, increasing inequality, service delivery backlogs in the townships and high crime levels all point to a persistence of the old patterns of urban fragmentation.

It can therefore be stated that the second transformation, the neoliberal devotion to globalised markets, has washed away the project of redistribution as it was apparent in the first draft of the RDP (in 1994), and that competition is the order of the day (Pillay, 2008). This situation translates into urban policies that fall in line with the conclusions of Friedmann's and Sassen's world/global city hypothesis: in an increasingly supranational world, cities are competing for investment from globally active corporations (Friedmann, 1986; Sassen, 1991). In South Africa, this applies especially to the metropolitan municipalities (‘metros’) that possess major planning competencies and are trying to use these to recreate themselves as world class cities (Seedat & Gotz, 2006). Although not all the metros were host cities (Ekhuruleni and Buffalo City did not stage any of the World Cup matches), most of the host cities were metros (Johannesburg, Cape Town, eThekwini, Thswane, Mangaung, Nelson Mandela Bay). Against this background, the rhetoric of the benefits of hosting the FIFA World Cup sounds very familiar – economic stimuli and image gains had been expected that would strengthen not only the host cities' position to compete globally for investment but also South Africa's international standing (Tomlinson, 2009).

4. Festivalisation in South Africa: The host cities' challenges

We can thus assume that hosting a mega-event such as the World Cup is very much in line with entrepreneurial urban policies under the condition of postmodernity, especially if we consider the points of reference given by the concept of festivalisation mentioned above. This is not to say that events can be understood exclusively from an urban perspective (Steinbrink et al., 2011), or that all types of events are similar. For example, the Rugby World Cup 1995, the Africa Cup of Nations 1996 and the Cricket World Cup 2003 have all been hosted successfully by South Africa (see Swart & Bob, 2004:1316). But although the infrastructural investment and the impact on urban development were limited, these events still had a huge image effect for the country. Mega-events (promising bigger gains and impact) have a more direct influence on the urban sphere, and are thus perceived to provide a more effective leverage for improving the host's position in all kinds of rankings.

Given this history, it can be stated that South Africa was eager and ready to provide the venues for a genuine mega-event – a consequent evolution of the idea of festivalisation. The following examples, all of them discussed in urban research on South Africa, show that the issues highlighted by earlier work on mega-events are all relevant here.

First of all, stadiums are a key concern for any sports mega-event. The cost of constructing South Africa's five new stadiums, as well as the refurbishing, upgrading and, in the case of Soccer City, almost complete reconstruction, of the other five stadiums, has been paid for almost entirely by the state – unlike the case in Germany, where private companies running the stadiums contributed substantially to their costs (Maennig & Du Plessis, 2009; see also Figure 2). Some of the metropolitan municipalities mentioned above tried to involve international architects in creating iconic buildings (Maennig & Schwarthoff, 2010) – an old trick of making one's mark so as to stand out from the other aspiring cities. Two typical effects of this boosterism can be observed as well: the costs of constructing the stadiums substantially exceeded the initially allocated budgets, and the capacity and technological standard of the equipment in these buildings was designed to suit FIFA's needs, but this equipment is not designed to be run under South African conditions of premier league soccer (observers suggest that especially Mbombela and Polokwane will struggle to fill their arenas ever again in the future, or to have the operating budgets to run their stadiums) (GTAI, 2010).

Figure 2: Map showing host cities and investment in the stadiums

Secondly, and this is an area where the World Cup is gaining Olympic dimensions, some of the host cities (e.g. Johannesburg and Durban) have gone beyond mere stadium (re-)construction: the whole area around the venues has been redesigned by spatial planning. Real estate speculation and the relocation of residents are the more prominent side effects of this approach, for example in Bertrams next to Ellis Park Stadium (Bénit-Gbaffou, 2009). In Cape Town there were some relocations from a squatter settlement along the N2 motorway to create a new housing project, N2 City. This example seems to be more a case of accelerating existing plans, however, since the upgrading of this area had already been planned before South Africa was selected as a host country. Nevertheless, there have been reports that other squatters and homeless people were forced to move to a transit camp called Blikkiesdorp (named after the corrugated iron that their new homes are built from – Afrikaans blik, a tin or can) located on the urban periphery because of the World Cup (Ley, 2010). Thus the impact of hosting the World Cup on the built environment and on places of residence was quite direct in South Africa.

Thirdly, the drive to ban unwanted urban activities was visible in the case of informal traders being obliged to leave the newly proclaimed exclusionary zones around the stadiums and being policed to make sure they would not try to sell any product with direct reference to the World Cup (Wafer, 2010). Such unlicensed sales were considered by FIFA to be ‘ambush marketing’, but it was up to the host cities to implement this strict and formalised interpretation of FIFA's marketing rights (Wafer, 2010). The increased policing of the informal sector was felt mainly by people who lacked other employment opportunities.

The fourth and last area of intervention to be mentioned here is the transport sector. From the time the deadline for the kick-off was fixed, many existing projects for upgrading the traffic system were fast-tracked. New projects, such as the Gautrain, the BRT (bus rapid transit) system and the King Shaka Airport in Durban, gained a lot of attention (Habacker, 2008; Tomlinson, 2009). The rail-based projects that were implemented were aimed mainly at the middle class and the international visitors, consequently the network of the Gautrain was built to link the airport with Johannesburg's (traditionally wealthier) northern suburbs and edge cities, but not with Soweto (Cronin, 2006), which is connected by the old Metrorail that uses a different gauge. In Cape Town no parallel system was built, but only a small extension of the existing network (see Figure 3). There was some controversy about the BRT system scheduled for all the larger host cities. This system relies on transforming one lane of main arterial roads into an exclusive BRT lane. Minibus taxis and other public transport are not allowed to use these lanes (and private cars are excluded as well, of course). The taxi industry is, by and large, opposed to this subsidised competition (Braumann et al., 2010).

Figure 3: Map showing transport infrastructure upgrades in Cape Town and nodes of World Cup investment

Before the World Cup kick-off, scepticism prevailed, especially from an urban research point of view. It seemed that in all four spheres of intervention that have been mentioned, the host cities traded in problematic legacies for the right to be in the limelight of international media coverage for a few weeks (Pillay, 2009; Tomlinson, 2009). The money spent on infrastructural development was a significant contribution to improving the existing sport and transport facilities, but the allocation of these investments was not always in line with overarching principles of spatial development. This is especially true for the expensive stadiums – nearly half of the government's World Cup budget was spent on them. Besides the spatial allocation of this investment, it is also questionable whether other items in South Africa's budget have not suffered too much, and how long it will take for government finance to recover. Also, there have been serious doubts whether the promised economic spin-offs will materialise and there has been no impact on poverty alleviation (Pillay & Bass, 2008; Sunday Independent, 2010). This would not be at all surprising, since research on the economic effects of past World Cups has shown that, in general, there have been only insignificant positive economic effects for the host, or none at all (Baade & Matheson, 2004; Allmers & Maennig, 2009).

5. The softer side of soccer: Imaging effects and social cohesion

Has the 2010 FIFA World Cup had any positive outcomes? Tomlinson et al. pointed out that effects on public image would be one thing to hope for: ‘The significant opportunity lies in contradicting commonly held representations of Africa’ (2009:3). Since the event proceeded without any significant incident, and in spite of the southern winter and Bafana Bafana's (the national football team's) early exit, the general perception of South Africa's performance as a host was overwhelmingly positive. Many visitors aired their satisfaction with being in South Africa, and many vowed to come back. The warmth of their reception by ordinary South Africans played an important role here, an experience that was facilitated by the fan parks and public viewing areas (PVAs), places far more accessible than the stadiums. Already in 2006, when the World Cup took place in Germany, PVAs played an important role in the positive evaluation of the event. These facilities proved to be areas of interaction; they worked like forums for encounters – superficial encounters perhaps, but not irrelevant (Baasch, 2009; Haferburg et al., 2009; and see also Allmers & Maennig, 2009:510, on the feel-good effects for residents).

Depending on their design and location, PVAs can help create social interaction. They are an important element for the safe and successful hosting of big events. The evolution of big screen technology since the late 1990s has made it possible for the games to be extended from the more exclusive stadiums to the street. When the success of PVAs became readily apparent in 2006 in Germany, it was clear that in 2010 the role of these ‘stadium replicas’ would be even bigger – and that they would be managed more systematically. Nevertheless, FIFA's grip on the PVAs was less tight than on the stadiums, so the PVAs can be seen as an area of urban governance much more under local control. Cape Town is a good example to support this argument: FIFA intervened to make sure the stadium would be built in Green Point next to the Atlantic shoreline and not in Athlone, as planned by the City of Cape Town; the latter position would have sent an integrative message due to its location at the urban interface between former ‘white’ and ‘non-white’ neighbourhoods (Swart & Bob, 2009; and see Figure 4). FIFA located its fan park in the CBD, but its influence on the other PVAs in Cape Town was not strong. PVAs proved to be an important new terrain of event driven urban policy.

Figure 4: Map showing Cape Town's spatial structure and directions of urban growth

6. Cape Town's room to move

In South Africa's oldest metropolis, Cape Town, we find all the components of the classic apartheid city persisting (segregation of population groups, functional fragmentation, and buffer strips turned into wasteland) plus an asymmetric spatial set-up epitomised by a CBD that has not been ‘central’ in a topographical sense for many decades. But there is potential in some of these structures, since open spaces, for example, could be used to promote the permeability of the urban fabric, and for the World Cup some of these spaces proved to be suitable venues for public viewing events. The huge potential for bringing together residents and tourists from different backgrounds and rediscovering a multitude of lost places has been discussed already (Haferburg et al., 2009; Golka & Selter, 2010; see also Figure 5). Also, given Cape Town's spatial structure, PVAs may have played a role in equalising traffic flows and alleviating congestion in the City Bowl.

Figure 5: Map showing Cape Town's functional fragmentation and the location of the public viewing areas (PVAs)

The City of Cape Town organised PVAs more or less in line with these considerations. Its biggest ‘fanzone’, the FIFA fan park, was located on the Grand Parade in the CBD, but other big PVAs were located in Bellville (in the North East), Philippi (in the South East) and centrally located Athlone (see Figure 6). Since Bellville was formerly a ‘white’ group area, Philippi ‘black’ and Athlone ‘coloured’, the distribution can be read as an attempt at equality. More important, though, is that all sites could be reached easily from various parts of the metropolis and were not necessarily ‘owned’ by a particular community. This cannot be said however, of the smallest dimension of PVAs, the so-called Community Viewings – here, emphasis was placed on local ownership. This strategy brings with it a potential reproduction of neighbourhood units, an effect that may be problematic given its historical precursors during apartheid.

The location of PVAs in South Africa was linked to safety concerns. The connection between the neighbourhoods and the metropolitan level was critical: intra-urban fragmentation was not bridged by the World Cup – the very distinct crowds in most of the PVAs reflected the differentiation of various zones of prosperity as well as the historical allocation of population groups across the urban landscape. In Sandton, for example, in Johannesburg's archetypical northern suburb, the spectators were mainly wealthy and ‘white’, whereas in contrast, the Fan Park in Soweto was almost exclusively ‘black African’ (personal communication of the author with fan park visitors). The translation of this pattern into a mosaic of different safety standards will remain a speculation here until related research results might become available. For now, it can be assumed that the patchwork of different levels of insecurity attributed to South Africa's cities (Palmary et al., 2003; Breetzke & Horn, 2006) was manifested during the World Cup. The negotiation of this status quo, as can be seen in this example of the PVAs, might contribute to an unwanted reification of urban fault lines. Richard Sennett commented on a similar locational strategy he was involved with in New York: ‘This strategy means that exchange between different racial, ethnic, or class-based communities is diminished’ (Sennett, 2008). A case in point may be that some of the PVAs, for example the metro-organised public viewing on Market Square in Newtown (Johannesburg), actually did attract residents and tourists from all kinds of backgrounds (Donaldson & Ferreira, 2007) – again, the centrality and easy access of the place would seem to have contributed to this.

Figure 6: Map showing sports mega-events in the new millennium and global social inequality

7. Is it the event that matters – or is it actually the city?

There is one more angle to consider when looking at the potential and effects of mega-events and urban development. The various types of public viewings, from FIFA fan parks to Community Viewing, demonstrated not only the scope of different applications of very similar elements of event-related interventions but also the variety of agents involved in this exercise. Besides this international involvement, one also has to acknowledge that urban politics are a contested terrain in South Africa, and the various constituencies that make up the big cities do not help to make the task easier. To complicate the picture, different levels of government are also competing to run the cities – the relationship between the provincial and metropolitan levels is especially fraught. Under apartheid's centralised government, leeway on the local level was limited. The municipalities were run by ‘white’ councils, whereas the ‘non-white’ areas had different systems of local government (if this term can be applied at all, since especially the Black Local Authorities can be understood as a direct expression of the apartheid state on the national level). The fragmentation of local government was overcome – at least formally – with the creation of new integrated municipalities from the mid-1990s. Local government moved closer to the urban residents, and for township dwellers this was the first opportunity to elect councillors in a democratic system. The restructuring of municipalities also made spatial planning more transparent (Watson, 2002). Interestingly, although many participatory elements were included in the planning process, the resulting documents published from the late 1990s onwards followed by and large the philosophy of global competitiveness (Pieterse, 2003). This is of course very much the same spirit which leads cities to bid for hosting mega-events, since it promises much sought-after image gains, and other benefits, as discussed above. So we need to ask what effects this has on local governance.

Improving a city's global marketing value and attracting foreign investment is, among other factors, dependent on the performance of the respective city's infrastructure – including its administration and the diverse municipal institutions. All these institutions are tried and tested during the preparations of any mega-event, and obviously must perform well to make sure that international perception is positive. Thus the build-up for any big event galvanises administrations and generally leads to a concentration of governance, if purely for the sake of effectiveness. Any obstacle that may occur during the preparations demands quick and pragmatic solutions, since fixed deadlines – one of the characteristics of sports mega-events – do not allow any time for consensual decision making or participatory feedback loops. Thus, everyone involved in this exercise learns how to circumvent bottlenecks – or how to cut through knots, if necessary. This antagonism to process-oriented methods of development is – at least in part – perceived as a desirable empowerment of higher levels of government. For example, Mbombela, one of the host cities, was placed under provincial administration when allegations of corruption and delays in the construction of the stadium could no longer be overlooked (Tomlinson, 2009:107; Osmanovic, 2010). A similar move that happened in 2010 in Johannesburg, just short of a month after the closing of the World Cup, may be interpreted in the same vein. Hosting the event might thus be seen as a strategy for concentrating political power and disenfranchising participation on the local level. This is especially relevant since most investment for the World Cup was not spread evenly across the metropolitan areas but followed a similar logic of consolidation.

Finally, regarding the hottest topic in the international media before the actual kick-off of the first match, South Africa's crime rate, it can be said that there was no real effort to overcome the typical territorialisation of safety. Privatisation and fencing-off of neighbourhoods are still the signs of the times in the South, and although the World Cup was generally free of major incidents, this strategy will not make South Africa's cities safer or more equal (Hentschel, 2010). Indeed, the fast lane of urban development that every host of a mega-event takes will only have a temporary effect on safe public places, unless it is embedded in truly integrated principles, as sketched out above (Sennett, 2008). Time pressure, the persistence of huge investments in the built environment and the tight legal framework of guarantees made to FIFA limit the host cities' leeway in significantly steering development.

8. Conclusion

The first FIFA World Cup in Africa took place under very different conditions from those of the World Cups of past decades. Although there have been prior World Cups in the global south, for example in Mexico in 1986 and in 1970, since then the marketing of the event has been professionalised to such an extent that hosting the event in South Africa seemed to be risky from a northern point of view. It would be interesting to debate whether this scepticism was at least partly fuelled by the fact that it would be a post-apartheid South Africa hosting the event. In any case, and as a matter of fact, the economic, infrastructural and societal realities in this country are certainly very different from the conditions of other host countries in the past 20 years. The allocation of the comparatively higher share of investment was very much influenced by FIFA's wishes, much more than in Germany in 2006. The examples of the interventions in locating stadiums and fan parks, plus the impact of preparations on local government, demonstrate that the sphere of influence of urban governance is increasingly restricted due to the role of being a host city. Within the remaining scope of action, there is a tendency to ‘play it safe’ and to prefer the conservative option in any kind of decision making. This caution can be attributed to both the national and local spheres of government. But this tactical approach to the game might prove counterproductive for South African metropolises' ambitions to become world class cities; indeed, it might only help perpetuate socio-structural problems. If this were to be the result, it would again enforce the dominant arguments in mega-event research (Haferburg, 2010).

Given the specific context of emerging economies hosting sports mega-events (e.g. higher social inequality), it seems appropriate to reassess the existing findings on urban development and mega-events. In South Africa, because of the smaller sized national economy and the lower standard of public transport and other infrastructure, and also because of the more informal organisation of urban life, hosting the World Cup has certainly had a bigger impact than it did in Germany, for example (Maennig & Schwarthoff, 2010). Thus, to analyse the World Cup's urban legacy what is needed is not only empirical work but also rethinking of the concept of ‘festivalisation’ – especially since the future host nations of mega-events will increasingly be countries of the global south: the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics will both take place in Brazil, and Durban will be one of the candidates for the 2020 Summer Olympics. On the other hand, the consecutive World Cups of 2018 and 2022 have been allocated to Russia and Qatar respectively, and the choice of both countries, but especially of the latter, certainly has to be discussed in the light of this new trend.

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on an article published in the Geographische Rundschau (Haferburg, 2010) – the maps and chart in this paper have been translated and updated. For the original drafts of the figures and for the modifications I would like to thank Stephan Adler and Matthias Fleischer.

Notes