>
> > [This came up the other week, and either Woj or
> > James H dismissed it
> > as a problem.]
> >
> > <<http://www.cohre.org/mega-events>http://www.cohre.org/mega-events>
>
>[WS:] Huh? This is the first time I hear of the
>report, but even if I did not it is highly unlikely
>that I would support spending public money on big
>sporting events or kindred forms of entertainment.
>You must have confused me with someone else.
>
>Wojtek
This is just too easy:
>Doug:
>
>
>The history of Olympic cities is on Monbiot's side. The
>"regeneration" usually consists of displacement and gentrification.
>
>
>
>[WS:] And what is exactly wrong with "regeneration" or "gentrification?" It
>creates economic growth, it improves living conditions, it creates jobs -
>what is wrong with that. Slums do not do that -they only perpetuate
>stagnation and misery. I can assure you from my Baltimore experience that
>most people who are "displaced" by gentrification love it, because it gives
>them economic opportunities that they did not have before. The only people
>who kvetch about gentrification are a handful of activistists who use it as
>an opportunity to create publicity for themselves and blasé intellectuals
>who hate the mainstream institutions. So regeneration is not bourgeois myth
>but material reality. It is "gentrification'' that is a left-wing and
>countercultural myth and a kvetching trope.
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