Host of ways Games can result in a positive legacy
use existing or temporary venues. Birmingham's Commonwealth bid is a good example of this, with the majority of venues using existing facilities.
In the future, major event venues will increasingly be housed in temporary structures, allowing land to be released swiftly for redevelopment after the games.
More affordable, off the shelf, or pre-engineered sporting venues will also be an important way of reducing cost.
Sporting events may be less focused on maximising venue capacity; reduced capacity venues will bring not only significant cost savings but will result in fuller stadia and a better atmosphere for spectators.
Using smaller facilities shouldn't mean fewer people being involved. Technological advances will allow organisers to bring even more people than ever before closer to the action.
Advances in hand-held technology, virtual reality and streaming media will make it possible for millions of people to tune into any number of live sports, take guided tours of venues or virtually experience being at the trackside with their favourite athletes.
Another important development is the emergence of new “value” focused financial models to help cities share the cost of hosting major events. Investment in regeneration can drive huge increases in surrounding land values.
There is the opportunity to capture a percentage of this increased land value and put it towards the cost of infrastructure. Another approach is tax increment financing (TIFs), which diverts future property tax revenues towards upfront infrastructure investment.
But crucially, headlines about the cost of major events focus on the overall figure but, planned well, much of the investment can be used to transform city infrastructure and drive much-needed regeneration.
This expenditure should be taken off the balance sheet, to reveal a “true cost of hosting” focused on the venues, security, marketing and other direct costs.
The Birmingham bid is a good example of this. The West Midlands, with its newly elected major and Combined Authority has already set out an ambitious development agenda.
The Games have the potential to drive existing plans and act as a catalyst for improving transport links, bringing new housing and boosting the region's growing digital, hi-tech and biological science sectors.
Birmingham has the opportunity to reinvent the Games, using it as a catalyst for a more ambitious development agenda.
Freed from the burden of creating expensive new physical structures to accommodate the Games, it could bring forward the much-needed investments in transport, housing, hi-tech skills and education.
Just as Brexit changes are about to kick in, Birmingham and the wider region would have the eyes of a large part of the world on it.
The Games has the potential to boost its already thriving leisure and business tourist economy and its attractiveness for overseas hi-tech investment ahead of the arrival of HS2. Jerome Frost, global planning & cities leader at Arup and former head of design & regeneration at the London 2012 Olympic Delivery
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