Boston Olympics Research Paper

Yiwei Wang

Nancye Araneo

ESL 155

23, Feb, 2015

Give Boston Olympics a Chance

“Give 2024 Boston Olympics a chance!” was invoked on social network, after Mayor Marty Walsh announced 2024 Boston Olympic bid. Due to the hundred years of development, the Olympic spirit has influenced and inspired generation after generation. Now, the Olympics is not only a athletic match, but also a stage for the host to show off. Hosting the Olympics in Boston would provide a wonderful opportunity to build a valuable legacy not only for Boston, but also for the Olympic movement. The 2024 Boston Olympic Games should be held to enhance quality of life for the residents in the greater Boston region.

Holding the Olympic games is a good chance to boost the public

transportation in greater Boston region. Public transportation in Boston is five subway lines and several bus lines, but some of subway lines are too old to be a modern transportation, and the bus lines are not completely covered. The Boston 2024 committee’s concept document shows: The existing transportation assets and long-range transportation investment plan of Boston will support its targeted economic growth and opportunity zones, the plan also aligns to and benefits the Olympic venues. The Boston council plans to expand South Station, extend the Green Line, build a new South Coast Rail to New Bedford and Fall River, renewal of composite transit services What does this mean? through the investment in new vehicles and enhanced the East-West rail capacities between Worcester and the South Boston Waterfront. (28) The 2024 Boston Olympic games will bring intense development of underutilized areas in Boston, and the utilization of open space will be enhanced. Since Boston is a port city, and there are enough airports in greater Boston region, the 2024 Boston Olympic games council can save money not building large transport facilities and use the investment to improve the public transportation. That is a good news for the residents who live in the greater Boston region because the daily traffic will be more efficient and convenient.
The infrastructure of the Olympic games will be a legacy. The legacy of hosting the Olympic games is most visibly identified by the improved physical character of Greater Boston. The Boston 2024 Olympics bid concept shows:
The legacy of hosting theGames is most visibly identified by the improved
physical character of Greater Boston. Greater Boston will take an exponential
leap forward with a new Midtown mixed-use neighborhood in the heart of the city,
a new student village at our public university, a renovated public golf course at
Franklin Park and the opportunity to transform Somerville into the “cycling capital
of America”(33)
Boston 2024 committee also announced that over 28 new venues will be built and old ones in Boston urban area will be renewed. In addition, Boston is going to build two major clusters that will provide 3,000 to 4,000 new affordable workforce units for residences in the core of city.(29)
Finance will increase after the Olympic games. The International Olympic Committee reported:
one year after the London OlympicGames, the economy of United Kingdom has
already raised GBP 9.9 billion in trade and investment boost from hosting the
Games, just one year into a four-year program of activities and events aimed at
capitalizing on the success of London Olympic games.(International)
The Olympic games can help Boston recover from economic downturns by creating job opportunities and a new economic region. Because of the new transportation system, Boston can provide the area with more economic activity that can offer work opportunities. At first, Boston need construction workers to build new facilities and renew the old one. And five important industries of Massachusetts—Financial Services, Higher Education, Technology, Health Care & Life Sciences, and Travel & Tourism—will be improved because of the Olympic games. Otherwise, the other industries from manufacture to service will be heightened.(Boston33) These advantages will provide various job opportunities. More importantly, help industrial restructuring to a higher-profit business area.
The relationship between tourism and the Olympics is obvious and positive.

In Preuss report:“ 26% of those surveyed regarding the Sydney games stated increase tourism as a reason to host the Olympics. In 1998, an ATC study reported an expected increase in tourism of 1.6 million visitors due to the Olympics.”(qtd. in Moss) This is a great opportunity to showcase Boston to the millions of viewers all over the world and a unique superiority to the other competitors. And the tourist trade will face an increase that occur only once in a thousand years. (Boston 33).“ An Oxford economics study estimated that the Olympic games will have generated 16.5 billions of pounds for the British economy by 2017.”(International) And the report of Chinese Tourist Agency shows that the number of oversea tourist arrival had been raised around 19% from 2008 to 2010, international tourism receipts of 2010 from oversea tourists is about 4 billion dollars more than 2007.(China) The Olympic games is the best advertisement for a city even a nation. Considering the United States’ wide territory and its influence in the world, the Boston Olympic Games is a good point for the tourists to travel to the greater Boston region, even the United States, and the tourist trade will

increased.
The Olympic Games can also affect the athletic culture in the greater Boston region. From the Boston 2024 committee’ report: Students study in the greater Boston region will learn more about the importance of nutrition and exercise. A huge number of courses about athletic culture will be set up in schools so that students will be encouraged to learn more about the history of Olympics.(33) The Olympic games effect will affect not only healthy lifestyle but also healthy knowledge. Compare to the unprepossessing publicity, it is a good topic for young people to accept the knowledge about the important of health because it happened near them.
The Olympic Games provide “soft power” to the United States.

Host nations had always celebrate the Olympic games as the national pride in modern era. China showed to the world that China was a progressive, modern, and capable country. The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic games gave the audiences an imagination about a historical, populous, and polyhedral country with a different culture. Chinese took pride from the achievements of Beijing Olympic games and show their sustaining manner to Chinese governments. “They interpreted their Olympic ideal which showed in the immediate context of China in not only a ‘cultural expression of the persisting crises of modernity and globalization’(Tomlinson) but also an attempt to resolve the characteristic tensions between locality and globality because of the process of globalization.”(Li) The United States can show their unique culture and multivariate society. American will take pride from their advanced science and technology as well as the accomplishment on the elimination of discrimination they had strived

together.
Above all, the 2024 Olympic games for Boston is a “thruster” which will propel Boston forward. It make residents imagine what their endeavor to become. And motivate them to work concurrently for this future. Both the movements and the legacy of Olympic can be the most rare asset for Boston and its residents, and the benefits will always be handed down.

Works Cited
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2024 committee’s. Print.
China National Tourism Administration. China Inbound Tourism in 2008, China Inbound
Tourism in 2010. Beijing: China National Tourism Administration, 2008, 2010, Web.
Mar, 16, 2015.
Grillo Thomas. Developers cite land and labor costs, lack of subsidies, for Boston's housing
shortage. Boston Business journal. Jun 10, 2014. Web. Mar, 16, 2015.
International Olympic Committee. London 2012 to provide long-lasting economic benefits. n.p.
Apr,08, 2013. Web. Mar, 16, 2015.
Li, Juan. "Nation and globalization as social interaction: interdiscursivity of discourse and
semiosis in the 2008 Beijing Olympics' opening ceremony." Semiotica: Journal of the
International Association for Semiotic Studies 200 (2014): 137+. Academic OneFile.
Web. 17 Mar. 2015.
Moss, Steven E., Kathleen H. Gruben, and Janet Moss. "International tourism and the Olympics:
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Academic OneFile. Web. 17 Mar. 2015.
Tomlinson, A. Olympic spectacle: Opening ceremonies and some paradoxes of globalization.
Media, Culture & Society 18. 1996. Print.