The Making of Olympic Cities

In the first forty or so years following its revival at the end of the nineteenth century, the burdens placed on cities hosting a modern Olympic Games were relatively modest. However, as the Games have grown in size and stature, morphing from a small-scale summer festival into an intensively mediated global lollapalooza, demands on host cities have massively increased, resulting in the construction of vast and expensive new stadia, Olympic villages, and associated infrastructure. Moreover, after the Second World War, host cities have increasingly used the Olympics as a means to achieve ambitious non-sporting policy goals.

Edited and introduced by two leading scholars, this new four-volume collection from Routledge brings together key primary-source materials and the best scholarship and serious commentary to elucidate and explore the planning, making, and generation of Olympic cities. The gathered materials (some of which are reproduced in facsimile to give users a strong sense of immediacy to the original texts) cover topics such as how cities have embraced the Olympics into their town-planning strategies; built new stadia and sports facilities; and constructed new transport and other communications networks. From what is widely seen as the paradigm of Olympics-led urban regeneration (Barcelona, 1992) to the planning disaster of Montreal, 1976, issues around the short-term impact, and longer-term legacy, of the Olympics on various cities are also closely interrogated.

Fully indexed and with a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editors, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, The Making of Olympic Cities is an essential work of reference. It is destined to be welcomed as a vital one-stop research tool.