los angeles 2024

[FYI]

^I wanna know what paul thinks from that Garcetti-glorified article LOL.

[Nacre]

12 hours ago, paul said:

If an OLYMPIC village plan in one of the globes most flourishing and successful cities is such a rare and fragile opportunity that no other options can even be imagined or considered beyond 24, it only goes to show that The Olympics present unreasonably difficult demands that almost no city in the future will be able to handle. Paris is reinforcing the fear that bidding for or hosting an Olympic Games is too complicated and beyond the reach of even the largest cities.

It is precisely because Paris is so well developed that it is difficult to find land. (It was already the world's biggest city in the medieval era and today it has twice the population density of Manhattan.) That's why sprawling Los Angeles has lined up for the Olympics eight times now while it is a monumental task to get New York to bid.

[baron-pierreIV]

I've changed my mind.  I think LA should reject getting seconds for 2028!!    Why should they settle for second best?  What do they think LA is -- chopped liver?  LA, Wasserman, Garcetti, the USOC, should not SWALLOW their pride and be resentful.  They should play hurt and tell the IOC to get lost!!  

Hey, maybe they'll get the 2032 Centennial!!  

[baron-pierreIV]

3 hours ago, RuFF said:

Like Paris did in 2012?

When in 2012 did they do it?  

[Quaker2001]

10 hours ago, baron-pierreIV said:

I've changed my mind.  I think LA should reject getting seconds for 2028!!    Why should they settle for second best?  What do they think LA is -- chopped liver?  LA, Wasserman, Garcetti, the USOC, should not SWALLOW their pride and be resentful.  They should play hurt and tell the IOC to get lost!!  

Hey, maybe they'll get the 2032 Centennial!!  

1 important thing to keep in mind.. LA already came in and cleaned up the USOC's mess after Boston was selected and fell apart.  LA's current bid is already a second choice, so they should be totally comfortable being the IOC's second choice!

[Sir Rols]

31 minutes ago, RuFF said:

Yea, the arguments of the opposition are enough to derail LA's bid. If carried over to Paris I think it could damage that bid, too. Their argument isn't cost overruns. It's a direct protest of the IOC and the Olympics. 

https://www.thenation.com/article/los-angeles-residents-start-to-organize-against-olympic-bid/

Honestly, it's nothing new in the way of arguments. There has always been a core who are opposed to the mere concept of the Olympics. IMO, the main thing that has changed is they get more traction these days through social media and the general "anti-elites" trending mood. But I've heard similar arguments way back from the 1980s and 90s.

[paul]

.......i wish the US would just drop out completely.....this group sounds like a bunch of idiots but i share their total mistrust of the IOC. The absolute worse thing about hosting is having those arrogant bloodsuckers attached to our city. Let Paris have their games before their fantasy village dissolves forever. When their budget double or triples we can all say i told you so........just like we do every time. And the best part........it costs us nothing and the fat IOC is hogging out in europe where they belong.

[FYI]

^Yeah, but then they'll come to L.A. in 2028 & wreak havoc there. 

[Nacre]

I don't think the budget issue will be a problem for Los Angeles or Paris.

1. Host cities usually break even on the cost of running the actual event itself.
2. Los Angeles and Paris will both have to build very little to host the Olympics, and the cities should easily be able to stump up the money for one or two construction projects without sacrificing healthcare, policing, etc.

My concern with a Los Angeles games is that it is yet more panem et circensis for a city that already cares far too much for fame and parties. An LA games will be a distraction from its real problems: the mass exodus of middle class people from Southern California, drought and water use, transit, etc. I can't think of any city in the world that needs the Olympics less than Los Angeles; LA is blessed with an abundance of publicity. What it lacks is the nuts and bolts of urban life.

[paul]

....p.s. the Sierra snowpack is like 200% normal..

transit is only a problem if you think LA should be in Europe.

the other problem is due to a political spiral of high taxes and free stuff in exchange for votes.

[paul]

2 hours ago, FYI said:

^Yeah, but then they'll come to L.A. in 2028 & wreak havoc there. 

...that buys time for the no-la-olympics gang to really get organized,.

[baron-pierreIV]

1 hour ago, Nacre said:

I can't think of any city in the world that needs the Olympics less than Los Angeles; LA is blessed with an abundance of publicity. What it lacks is the nuts and bolts of urban life.

LA needs the Olympics as a once-every-40-years social catalyst.  It needs as a strong wake-up-to-reality slap-in-the-face.  LA has long been the center of make-believe, especially true in the 1932 Olympics when the talkies were but 3 years old; and movies, nearly all made there, were the dominant form of mass communcation for an America still not out the Depression.  Move-studio LA weathered the onslaught of TV; and the 1984 Games just turned out to be the perfect portal for that.  But since then, LA has become even more "make-believe" in that movies are made cheaper in Canada; and LA is only good for the post-production work and where young people still come to be hopefully for the movies.  I doubt that its new transit system brings the camaraderie that the subways of New York, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco bestows on their population.  

An Olympics waits for no man.  It will bring thousands of Angelenos and suburbanite together again for 17 days of the Games and what? another 10-14 for the Paras.  This is the one time when it has to open  on one night; when they will see that fastest man/woman run at a designated time only once; when Marylou Retton, Jr.  will do her fantastic leaps; when Janet Evans, IIIrs, will match or pass her mother's achievements in the pool -- and all of these happen in reality, at one appointed point in time -- not in some manufactured computer or lab. The visitors will be here to do their magic over a few set days; and they will be gone after a few sunrises.  A 2028 Games in LA will draw and unite the younger generation and children of the older ones who worked and kvelled in the magic of the '84 Games in one, more real coming together.  

(In a way, it's good that the World Cup will come in 2026.  It should give LA a good work-out for '28 even though there will be trial competitions all over 2027.) 

But that is ultimately what a 3rd Games will mean for LA; not another sheen of publicity for an already mostly 'artificial' town.  Athletes, officials, Olympo-philes will come for the Games and visit relatives and friends.  But there is no LA ambience (or at least for the compact city-Europhiles among us) who would want to take in LA the way one does Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, Barcelona or even Berlin in Europe.  The IOC would have repaid the persistent USOC and always-bridesmaid SCOOG after 44 years; and won't be due for another one for another 40 years or so.   

[Nacre]

38 minutes ago, paul said:

....p.s. the Sierra snowpack is like 200% normal..

transit is only a problem if you think LA should be in Europe.

the other problem is due to a political spiral of high taxes and free stuff in exchange for votes.

One good year of snow will not get rid of the long term water problems in California.

Transit is a problem because traffic is a problem. Traffic means lower worker productivity, more money wasted on fuel instead of being capitalized through education or investment, higher labor costs for the goods delivery system, etc. And it also allows for higher densities, which itself increases the efficiency of businesses. Shifting commuters onto rail or bikes is better for the economy. Of course this is an issue all over North America and not only in California. I don't mean to suggest that insufficient mass transit is specific to Los Angeles.

[paul]

 

7 hours ago, Nacre said:

One good year of snow will not get rid of the long term water problems in California.

Transit is a problem because traffic is a problem. Traffic means lower worker productivity, more money wasted on fuel instead of being capitalized through education or investment, higher labor costs for the goods delivery system, etc. And it also allows for higher densities, which itself increases the efficiency of businesses. Shifting commuters onto rail or bikes is better for the economy. Of course this is an issue all over North America and not only in California. I don't mean to suggest that insufficient mass transit is specific to Los Angeles.

the drought is OVER. This is not the first wet year that ever happened here and it wont be the last, it's cyclical. We'll be skiing in swimsuits on July 4th again, nothing like Sierra corn in 100 degrees. Brainwashing is a bigger problem here.

Edited May 9, 2017 by paul

[FYI]

9 hours ago, paul said:

...that buys time for the no-la-olympics gang to really get organized,.

But, but, what about all the "Olympics are 'ingrained' into the culture of L.A.", yada, yada, yada & blah, blah, blah. Is all that stuff a bunch of LIES then?! 

[zekekelso]

11 hours ago, Nacre said:

I don't think the budget issue will be a problem for Los Angeles or Paris.

1. Host cities usually break even on the cost of running the actual event itself

In other words, if you only count some of the expense (but of course include all the revenue) you break even. 

[FYI]

 

10 minutes ago, RuFF said:

The spirit of the movement and the IOC are two different things.

The IOC IS the movement. So both are actually one in the same. Without the IOC, there is no "spirit of the movement".

[FYI]

7 minutes ago, RuFF said:

While I get LA has issues it would be naive to discount the issues of other cities to make a point here. 

Well, you do it all the time with other cities in order to make a point for L.A. So what's the difference.

[baron-pierreIV]

1 hour ago, RuFF said:

I think this concept that LA is stuck or a fantasy of a city, not really urban, etc., is poorly conceived when in reality LA is just a young city. Adding public transit to a global city is a logical next step. Adding even more density comes with that, but if anybody thinks LA is not already a dense major metropolitano area with major strengths they're fooling themselves. 

But that's funny.  Why do you live in Miami, rather than LA?  

[FYI]

11 minutes ago, baron-pierreIV said:

But that's funny.  Why do you live in Miami, rather than LA?  

Exactly, I've asked that before as well. If L.A. is this grand, urban utopia that truff raves it out to be, then why doesn't she live there (or even nearby). Instead, they live far away at the opposite end of the country, where they can't even see for themselves L.A.'s "grandness" on a day-to-day basis. It's all just posturing & hyperbole.

[Quaker2001]

18 hours ago, RuFF said:

Yea, the arguments of the opposition are enough to derail LA's bid. If carried over to Paris I think it could damage that bid, too. Their argument isn't cost overruns. It's a direct protest of the IOC and the Olympics. 

https://www.thenation.com/article/los-angeles-residents-start-to-organize-against-olympic-bid/

No they're not.  It may raise questions in the minds of voters that give them reason to vote for Paris, but you know as well as I do that LA's bid leader won't pay much mind to any of this.  Wasserman and Garcetti and company are now pretty well invested in working with the IOC and there's little to nothing that might change that at any point in the next 4 months.

17 hours ago, Sir Rols said:

Honestly, it's nothing new in the way of arguments. There has always been a core who are opposed to the mere concept of the Olympics. IMO, the main thing that has changed is they get more traction these days through social media and the general "anti-elites" trending mood. But I've heard similar arguments way back from the 1980s and 90s.

This.  1 of the big questions raised these days is that even if there are profits, where does that money go?  Does it benefit the population or does it go in the pockets of "elites"?  And I agree 100% that social media and an anti-elite mindest plays into that.

Can also make a point about Barcelona.. when I was there a few years ago, I heard that there are more than a few locals who are not happy with what the city became in the years after the Olympics.  They said it's great for attracting visitors, but that the city can almost be overrun with tourists to the point where some of the local culture was lost in order to placate the tourism industry.  So it's a catch-22 of what even a successful Olympics can do.  It's why even the best-intentioned of Olympic plans will draw scrutiny and beg the question of "why?"

[Quaker2001]

3 hours ago, RuFF said:

The spirit of the movement and the IOC are two different things.

Yes they are, but to FYI's point, if you want "the movement" to come to LA, then you're dealing with the IOC.  if you're trying to look for an event that shows off Southern California's love and passion for sport without dealing with the IOC, then we're not talking about the Olympics, and it's not like LA is going to pursue something like the Pan Am Games just for the hell of it.

3 hours ago, RuFF said:

While I get LA has issues it would be naive to discount the issues of other cities to make a point here. Housing and costs and an exodus of people and tourism is also a problem in Paris. Even business, such as fashion, have recently found new pastures in Berlin, Milan, and even Los Angeles. That said Paris isn't falling apart, either.

Another point. While mass transit is something relatively new to LA, LA itself is a relatively new city. While it has an image of having a car culture that same car culture propelled LA's regional population to grow some 18 million of its 18.7 million people in a period of 100 years. And that same population resides in the US's most densely populated and largest footprint metropolitan area. Point is this, while freeways and driving may not be favored, it is directly linked to density in Los Angeles, and it is directly linked to its 3rd largest in the world GDP, and it has been the backbone of business in greater LA for decades. 

I think this concept that LA is stuck or a fantasy of a city, not really urban, etc., is poorly conceived when in reality LA is just a young city. Adding public transit to a global city is a logical next step. Adding even more density comes with that, but if anybody thinks LA is not already a dense major metropolitano area with major strengths they're fooling themselves. 

You keep pushing this narrative that LA is a relative new city and there's truth to that, but in the context of the Olympics, you can't sell that to the IOC when they've been there twice before.  If LA is a new city now, what were they in 1984 or 1932?  Sell the transformation that has occurred there since the last Olympics, but don't pretend like LA isn't already on the IOC's radar as if they were a non-entity in the past.  Oh, and in the interest of not making up alternative facts, LA is only the 2nd most densely populated metro area in the United States.  The NYC area has more than double LA's population density.

And LOL at you talking about someone else's fantasy views of LA.  Pot meet Kettle.

[ejaycat]

I went out tonight and took a few pics of some of the buildings in LA that were lit up in the bid logo colors.

 

Los Angeles City Hall and Grand Park fountain

 

The Broad Museum

 

Disney Hall

 

Wilshire Grand Center

[Rob2012]

Great pics thanks ejay. Just a thought looking at those - where will the big set of Olympic rings end up if LA gets the Games? It seems to have become a thing to adorn one of the city's most famous landmarks with them, but for all its fame in other areas, I'm finding it hard to think of a truly world famous building that defines LA. Unless they plonk them next to the Hollywood sign, of course!

[FYI]

2 hours ago, Rob. said:

I'm finding it hard to think of a truly world famous building that defines LA. Unless they plonk them next to the Hollywood sign, of course!

The U.S. Bank Tower, currently L.A.'s tallest & unique looking building. It sticks out like a sore thumb, virtually right in the middle of the L.A. skyline. L.A. definitely comes to mind when I see it (besides the Hollywood sign). 

The aliens in Independence Day knew of it at least. Cuz it was the building they centered on to use their destructive laser, from the mother ship overhead, to blow up the city with!