Rising East Online

Reviews

Review: After the Gold Rush

by Mike Rustin

A trenchant pamphlet published by Demos and the Institute of Public Policy Research encourages us to see the ‘Games legacy’ not only in terms of buildings, but social investments too.

‘After the Gold Rush: A Sustainable Olympics for London’ is a short book published by the ‘think tanks’ Demos and the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) in 2004. It came out shortly before the submission of the British Olympic Bid for 2012, and can be found online at www.demos.co.uk/openaccess.

It has an introduction and conclusion by its three editors - Anthony Victor, Melissa Mean, and Charlie Tims - and five chapters by authors with different fields of expertise on desirable legacies of the Games.

These are the social legacy (Mike Raco), the employment legacy (Martin Crookston), environmental dimensions (Roger Levett), the sporting legacy (Professor Fred Coalter), and the cultural legacy (Keith Khan).

Although East London does not figure in the title of this book, all of it is focused on the benefits that the Games might bring to this part of the city. Its aim is to link the Games project as closely as possible to urban regeneration in the Thames Gateway.

As such, it provides valuable data, both on East London and on the comparative experience of other cities which have been hosts to Olympics and other major sporting events.

Although the authors are committed to the Games coming to East London, their essays suggest grounds for concern about how much lasting benefit is likely to result from the Olympics if they take place here.

They point out that expectations of lasting economic gains in cities where the Games have previously been held have often been disappointed. They report the economic deprivation of East London, and show the difficulties of ensuring that jobs created before and during the Games will in fact go to local citizens, rather than commuters from outside, even ‘Aussies and Kiwis’.

Various ways are proposed of making the Games environmentally friendly - for example in the design of the Olympic village and its stadiums, and in promoting journeys by train, on foot, and by bicycle. But this is in face of the un-Green fact that big international festivals are inevitably high consumers of energy because of the air travel they encourage.

Some good ideas are put forward to encourage participation in sport, and to make the Games a genuinely multicultural event, turning the exceptional ethnic diversity of East London into a creative resource.

‘After the Gold Rush’ suggests that it will take a great deal of detailed application to achieve the outcomes the authors would like to see. It is too easy to see the legacy of the Games in terms of buildings alone, they point out, especially since built sporting facilities do not always find an economic long-term use.

They focus on the ‘soft’ or social investments that are necessary too. They come up with nine specific proposals, to focus attention on action. These include some good and workable ideas, such as an Annual National School Olympics, an Employment Taskforce, and a Cultural Resource for Open Learning (based on the internet).

One positive thing to be said is that if Britain wins the bid in July 2005, there will still be seven years to ensure that the Olympics development does become genuinely embedded in the development of the Thames Gateway. In this context the critical analysis and positive ideas of ‘After the Gold Rush’ will be a useful resource.

But both the Olympic bid itself, and the argument of ‘After the Gold Rush’, leave me with some concerns. Too much of the investment proposed in the bid is dependent on the Olympic bid succeeding, with the regeneration of East London seen as a valuable bonus to this.

Urban regeneration might have been the main narrative, in which the Olympics would be a crowning element. Indicative of this weakness of commitment to the region is the failure to commit to the completion of Crossrail before 2012 (or indeed, so far, by any date). One should not build trans-city railways for 29-day events, obviously, but making it ready for the Games would have signified a firm commitment to re-balancing east and west London.

There was also scope to make the Lower Lea Valley regeneration scheme a genuinely visionary idea, proposing a 'waterside city' (a modern Delft, for example) to rival the high-quality urban environments of parts of west London.

Too much attention to social deprivation, rather than in the possibilities of improvement, can be counterproductive. The Olympic bid would be more convincing if it were one element of such a bold commitment to change, not a proposal that leaves one worried whether anything much will be done if it fails.

The Street Olympics and National School Olympics come near to the kinds of visible initiatives that might change things, though surely the place of sport in schools has to be addressed here as well.

Inter-city cultural festivals linking London with cities from which many of its new citizens come are another idea that comes to mind.

‘After the Gold Rush’ refers a lot to ‘branding’ (this has been one of the constant themes of Demos). But this mainly refers to the Olympic brand and what can be done with it, and not enough to the rebranding of East London and the Thames Gateway - a more pressing problem.

Nonetheless, this book is a good starting point for thinking about what the Olympic Games might and should mean to East London if the bid is won.

Mike Rustin is Professor of Sociology at the University of East London.

Return to top

---

© 2004·05

Background image © Steve Hall