Chicago, Post-Olympic Letdown

It's been quite some time since I wrote my last post. I'll call it a summer hiatus to make it sound like it was planned.

Anyway, as you've probably heard, an emotional bomb was dropped on the fair land of Chicago last week. Depending which side you're on, it was either a catastrophic failure or the best thing that's ever happened to us. We lost the 2016 Olympics to Rio de Janiero.

It was an embarrassment, to be sure, compounded by the fact that we were eliminated first. My immediate reaction was, "eliminated first?" Who else was there to eliminate? According to all the press I'd been hearing--and I was paying moderately close attention--there were only two cities still in the running. Rio and us.

Madrid? Tokyo? I hadn't heard any word on either of them since derivatives were just a benign high school algebra concept. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that these cities were not only still in the running, they had in fact beat us out!

My second wave of emotions, after the shock and confusion wore off, was a mix of loss, anger and regret. A mourning of sorts. This reaction was baffling to me, since I've been campaigning against having the Olympics in Chicago since the bid was announced.

Think of the cost to the taxpayers! Think of the rampant destruction of the South Side as shoddy, temporary stadiums are thrown up on beautiful parkland, only to decay, unused, like the famous "White City" of the 1893 Columbian Exposition! Think of the deceitfulness of Daley, and the fast one he will be fully permitted to play on us Chicagoans yet again (Yes, part of the reason I didn't want the Olympics was that Daley really, really did, and I just hate to see Daley get what he wants. I recognize that this is not unlike what some Republicans feel towards Obama, but I have good reason.). Finally, and perhaps most importantly, think of what our commutes will be like! [Pause to shudder]

Yes, I had plenty of reasons not to want the Olympics here, and only one reason to want them--vanity. The pride of being an Olympic city, the apple of the world's eye for two whirlwind weeks. And though vanity is one vice I've never been short on, it didn't seem a compelling enough reason to root for "Chicago 2016."

But it wasn't my vanity alone that was hurt when we lost the Olympic bid last week. Having been spared the daily burdens of the games on city infrastructure and funds, I was left to ponder the grass-is-greener long-term significance of playing host city to the world's oldest and most venerated sporting event.

As a colleague pointed out, the Olympics would have been the fifth star on Chicago's flag--one of which is the famed Columbian Exposition, another the Great Chicago Fire. To live through something as monumental to the city as those events, now that would have been an experience. And yes, it was preposterous of Daley to commit money we don't have to an event that most of us didn't want.

But whenever a show of this scale is staged, it always seems a little preposterous. Certainly the idea of creating an entirely new city-within-a-city in two years for the 1893 Exposition--let alone in a city drowning in crime and soot--seemed foolhardy at the time. Without ample quantities of hubris, daring and insanity, the famed "White City" would never have come to be. But few people today would argue that it was a mistake for the city.

Money can always be better spent than on pomp and spectacle. Busby Berkley, a name synonymous with spectacle, made a lot of his films during the Depression. Maybe people needed some glitz in their lives. Fantasy is, by nature, over the top. And for the chance to live through history, maybe it would have been worth it to suffer two weeks of horrendous commutes.

Still, Chicago didn't need the Olympics. And after having gotten over the momentary disappointment, I'm overwhelmingly glad we've been spared. Life will continue as before for us, South America will celebrate its first Olympic games, and in about a week no one in Chicago will even be talking about this anymore.

The money that would have been spent on the Olympics won't be spent on schools or crime prevention, as detractors like myself suggested it should--because those expenditures won't get us any solos on the world stage. Obama probably shouldn't have wasted his time flying to Europe to make the sales pitch in person, but what's done is done. And for now, at least, our parks and pocketbooks are safe.