Greater Boston and Massachusetts have agonized for decades about the high cost of housing and the lack of sufficient housing affordable to different income levels.
Similarly, for decades now we have recognized the need for systemwide investments in our transportation infrastructure. But beyond efforts to fund immediate issues, there has been an inability on Beacon Hill and within the business community to effect system change.
So here is a radical idea: Let’s aggressively pursue a bid to host the Summer Olympics in 2024, not only as a way to showcase our amazing region, but also to deal with two of the most difficult issues undermining our growth and prosperity – our needs for major housing production and transportation investment.
The lack of housing production is a huge issue. A recent finding by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council noted that we are at a housing crossroads in charting the region’s own economic future. Optimally, the metropolitan Boston region should create up to 435,000 units of housing, primarily in urban areas, by 2040. The ability of individual communities to support necessary new housing to retain young professionals and seniors determines our region’s road ahead. Without it, we all will suffer with uneven prosperity and widening income gaps.
There are pros and cons to hosting the Olympics. Some cities, like Barcelona, say that hosting introduced them to the world’s stage. The event is still heralded by locals today, although it occurred over 20 years ago. On the other hand, Montreal’s publicly funded 1976 Olympics reportedly created $2.7 billion in debt that took almost 30 years to pay off.
Boston does not need the Olympics to put us on the map. The Olympics are costly, but the days of locals shouldering the full cost burden are no longer. The United States Olympic Committee and International Olympic Committee understand that hosting the Olympics has become too expensive. Built in to their selection criteria is the concept that preparation for three weeks of fun, competition, and worldwide attention also includes securing permanent improvements.
More Housing Opportunities
The Olympics require temporary housing for some 15,000 athletes as well as another 15,000 media visitors, who bring the games to the world. The kind of short-term housing that the Olympics needs is the kind Boston’s young future residents want – smaller units, apartments, close proximity to public transportation, and where jobs and the urban action are located.
In London in 2012, the games were a shot-in-the-arm to investing in its antiquated infrastructure. In today’s terms, a rough estimate of the cost of putting on the Olympics is $7 billion. Of this amount, $2 billion would involve enhancing the existing transportation infrastructure. In our case, this equates to an overhaul of our struggling system.
We could build or provide thousands of units of housing, central enough and close enough to revitalized public transportation. The city has experience with public-private partnerships. New investments could be made attractive to area universities, hospitals, and other major employers because, post-Olympics, the properties would be valuable assets. Existing housing, like dorms, could be leveraged. About 50,000 students conveniently leave the Boston area during the weeks the Olympics would be held, in late July.
There are considerations other than housing, of course. Security is a major one – but that huge cost is considered a national matter and paid for by the federal government.
Besides investment in housing and transportation and security, we would have to provide venues. The big item is a stadium for opening and closing events and for track and field. It would have to accommodate 80,000 people, more than any permanent facility we’d need in the future. But the idea of creating a white elephant structure, like Beijing’s Egg, is no longer. Athletic facilities can be built to endure with modular surrounding seating to be removed when the flame is extinguished.
Much of the rest of the commonwealth would benefit if Boston hosted. Springfield is the birthplace of basketball and volleyball and could host some of the games.
An admitted consideration is that when Olympic tourists visit town everyday business comes to a halt. The region would have to embrace sufficient vacation-shifting and flexible work arrangements to accommodate the Olympics throngs – London estimates were that about 700,000 visited during the Olympics and the Paralympics games that followed.
A Legislative Commission is looking at the issue now and will report by March 1. Once a bid has been submitted, the International Olympics Commission will evaluate proposals and decide in 2016. Let’s maximize our legacy and make investments for our future. Are you game?
Susan Gittelman is executive director of B’nai B’rith Housing, a nonprofit, nonsectarian developer and operator of affordable and mixed-income housing serving families and elders in communities of Greater Boston. BBH is currently working on developments in Sudbury and Sharon.
