Last week, activists and community residents from Dorchester, Roxbury and Jamaica Plain were joined by officials from the Olympic organizing committee Boston 2024 and from the opposition group No Boston Olympics in an open discussion about what the games could mean for Boston.
The meeting, titled “The Boston Olympic Bid, Communities of Color and the Future of Our City” was sponsored by the Boston Branch of the NAACP and URBAN Boston, a research group, and gave residents the opportunity to air concerns about the games, which would use Franklin Park, Widett Circle and other venues in Boston neighborhoods to host sporting events.
“The Olympics themselves are not as important for Boston as the opportunity to develop development priorities for the city,” said Michael Johnson of URBAN Boston, who ran the meeting. He discouraged members from using the time to promote or protest supporting the Olympics bid.
Attendees took seats around rectangular tables, laid out with discussion questions and blank nametags. Partway through, the presentation broke for group discussion, then each table’s facilitator presented their group’s ideas.
Suggestions for getting value from the Olympics included ways to get the most from new physical structures created for the games. One group proposed letting school sports teams use the left-over stadiums, and another said that as new infrastructure got built, they wanted to see the city become more accessible to people with disabilities.
Collateral gains
Many cited more affordable housing as a major goal to be pushed for, whether or not the Olympic bid goes through.
Others looked at various ways in which communities could benefit from the games themselves. Care should be taken to ensure local businesses get sponsorship opportunities and are not locked out by larger companies, said one group. For instance, if McDonalds were to take certain food sponsorship roles, it would prevent neighborhood restaurants from doing the same. This group proposed offering training sessions to business to explain the processes for getting involved.
The Olympics preparation was also seen as a chance to create new decision-making processes for Boston.
“I think the Olympics could definitely catapult the progression of Boston,” said Terrance Moreau, a sales and leasing agent with Century 21, who saw potential for the games to boost to the city as a whole. “I personally feel as though it can be beneficial as far as a business plan for the city and the city growing.”
Some regarded the Olympics as a double-edged sword, with the potential both to heighten problems and provide opportunities. Debbie Chen, a city planner from Chinatown, expressed worries that increased traffic from tourists could worsen already high pollution rates in the neighborhood. However, she also saw the Olympics debate as an opportunity to put clean air on the agenda.
Phil Reason of Community Labor United said he was unaware of any previous example in which the Olympics had made a positive impact on the local community.
“Olympics have been happening forever,” he said. “As far as my understanding, they’re not working anywhere. They come in and destroy cities and they leave, and people of color historically do not benefit.”
Long-term vision, voice
The discussion surfaced many concerns, including potential loss of homes, disruption of communities and increased gentrification and displacement due to rising property values or the land takings by eminent domain.
“If the Olympics come, it’s going to bid up the property values even more,” said Becky Pierce of Dorchester People for Peace “The vision is the city of Boston will take over control from people who live here.”
Some attendees expressed doubt that community voices would be heard or taken seriously. Chris Ho of Jamaica Plain said that once the host city agreement is signed, the Olympics organizing committee will no longer be obligated to listen.
On the Web
For more information about URBAN Boston, visit: http://www.bostoncreates.org/
For more information about Boston NAACP, visit: www.bostonnaacp.org.
“It [the agreement] creates an Olympic organizing committee that has to have the power to sign contracts and everything on behalf of the host city. It is independent of any oversight,” he said. “So if the mayor signs this it’s over. There is no more process. Rich Davey can promise what they want, but they don’t have to be accountable. This committee — Olympics oversight committee — supersedes all others.”
A number of attendees also said they did not feel their communities were sufficiently represented in the Olympics discussion or that enough facts had been provided about the bid to allow them to make informed decisions.
URBAN Boston and the NAACP representatives emphasized the need for more research and for basing action on data. Michael Curry of the NAACP said that data is critical both for providing hard evidence of issues that need to be resolved and for understanding what opportunities might be seized.
“If we don’t understand what the pie looks like, we don’t get to ask for it,” he said. “If we don’t even know what the opportunities are, we can’t even come into the room and negotiate some opportunities for our community.”
The organizations are assembling a volunteer team of researchers and community members to investigate how the Olympics could impact visions for the communities. They plan to conduct research over the summer with a community follow-up held in the fall.
