BrianGarst.com

Of all the bad ideas to come out of DC, this may yet be the worst:

Before you join the cynics and naysayers who airily dismiss the notion that Washington should bid to host the 2024 Olympics, hear the counsel of a man intimately familiar with both our city and Olympics success.

Andrew Altman headed the District’s Office of Planning from 1999 to 2005 under Mayor Tony Williams, where he won praise for pushing redevelopment of the Anacostia waterfront. More recently, Altman headed a British public corporation that planned the rebirth of London’s blighted East End after it hosted the 2012 Olympics.

Does he think the Olympics could help revitalize struggling neighborhoods in the District (and elsewhere) in similar fashion, at the same time that it united our fragmented region around common goals?

You bet.

“I think it would be fabulous for Washington, having lived in Washington and loved it,” Altman said. “The Olympics are a great motivator to mobilize people regionally around a vision for future growth.”

Let the chorus say, “Amen.”

Count me among those “cynics and naysayers.” Trying to host the Olympics in DC would not only make life miserable for those of us here (DC’s transportation infrastructure is stretched to the limit already), but it would be a massive money sink for the area.

As Veronique de Rugy points out, the economic impact of sports subsidies never lives up to the hype. The result is always a net loss for taxpayers. The Olympics in particular have proven quite costly for host cities.

Though, Kyle Smith makes a good argument for why the DC is an appropriate host for the Olympics. As the Olympics are typically beneficial to only select businesses and industries at the expense of the broader taxpaying public, thee games are symbolically appropriate for the world’s premiere practitioner of crony capitalism.