Telegraph: "When Robert Macfarlane looks out from the window of his Beijing tower block, he can see 34 cranes. In this essay, he explores a city of five million migrant labourers which has developed a mania for remaking itself in the buildup to this summer's Olympics"
it scares me to think what the huge population of workers will do when this construction boom dies down. or when these olympics are over.
ReplyDeleteit also seems silly to me for cities that are chosen to host the olympics to completely update and renovate their cities. it makes sense to clean up and make nice for the millions of people that will be coming there, but to change the overall aesthetic or feeling of the city seems backwards since it could force the characteristic elements to dissappear.
It seems to me, that when considering a city to host the Olympic games, you are not just considering its attributes but its POTENTIAL. You would think that a city like Beijing would be at the peak of its industrial modernity. However, it seems that the demand for space and people has grossly exceeded any morals developers might have towards its people and its workers.
ReplyDeleteI really don't think that complete or even extensive renovation that cities do when they will be hosting the olympics is really a good thing. All that transformation that happens before the olympics happens is a good thing when the olympics actually are going on. They build hotels for the many people that will be coming to town. They build subways to transport them along with many other projects just for this one period. But once that olympics are over the city is still left with all these building and changes to the city that really were not nessicery for the city and for the people that actually live there.
ReplyDeleteEh. Migrant workers tend to migrate. They'll go back home and life will be as usual. Nothing scary about that.
ReplyDeleteWhat is scary is that Beijing has a huge problem with smog. This is going to become absolutely devastating when the Olympic crowds come in. The author talks about the smog as he's walking around town on a normal day, children and the elderly are encouraged to stay inside. What's to come is kind of terrifying.
I don't see why Beijing was chosen. Developers know that everything in that city is built with concrete, and whatever green space that remains in the city will be quickly effaced. Renovations would have helped Beijing if they weren't polluting everything to hell.
The economic impact of the Olympics is profound on any city because of the extreme spike in tourism that comes into effect. Beijing, like many cities, is anticipating this intense spike and keeping that in mind as they invest in more civil reconstruction. When you think about it, it is a great opportunity to try and add public transportation, and revitalize the plan of a city that could not predict its own future.
ReplyDeleteThe problems occur when the Olympics go bust. For the Athens games in 2004, the word terrorism spread very quickly and had a devastating impact on the anticipated tourism. For Beijing, the issue is Tibet and human rights violation is causing huge problems. They had to extinguish the Torch during transportation in order to avoid protesters. The line between global politics and the Olympics is a very fine one.
Good for them! And this is why there are new millionaires rising every minute in Beijing. I think it's incredible how much resources they have, landscape wise and financially. Hosting Olympics only have impacted positive impacts that were just unmeasurable. And it will do the same again.
ReplyDeleteAnd yea, I agree China & Tibet issues are very difficult and sensitive, but Chinese government has already dealt the similar issues with Taiwan and Hong Kong. I wish this may solve some of the problems they are all facing.
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