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Mega-Projects and Mega-Events: What is Left for the City? Excerpted from: Ute Lehrer, "Mega-Projects and Mega-Events: Olympics in Berlin," invited speaker at public event on "Olympic Dreams - Urban Nightmare?" organized by Bread-Not-Circus, Metro Network for Social Justice, and International Network for Urban Research and Action, Toronto, September 16, 1998. Mega-events such as the Olympics, World Exhibitions and other such spectacles, are temporally limited. They have, however, a long-term impact on the social and spatial fabric of the city. Of course these events can have positive effects (such as an improvement of the public transport system). But as examples in many cities show they create major negative effects, at least in the short and medium if not in the long run (gentrification; demolishing of inexpensive housing stock; open urban spaces are turned into places of concrete and asphalt etc.). Insofar mega-events cause similar problems as other mega-projects. My contribution today is focusing on the role of these mega-projects in the public discourse and in the spectacularization of the building process. Specifically I want to talk about Berlin and how public planning becomes more and more privatized and dominated by multinational corporations. As examples I will talk about the redevelopment of Potsdamer Platz, a central place within the unified city (In order to build the mega-project the whole construction site was turned into a major spectacle.). The second example is Berlin's bid for the Olympics 2000 and the strategies the opponents were using in order to make sure that the votes of the IOC members would favor another city (among other forms of radical activities, the opponents produced a video tape that showed smashed windows, burning cars and other acts of civil disobedience. It ends with a person raising their fist and saying: "We are waiting for you."). Let me start with a few general remarks. Since the 1980s, many cities throughout the world have experienced massive investment into the built environment. As we have witnessed in cities throughout the world tall buildings and large scale projects are mushrooming both in the core of cities and at their peripheries. These mega-projects often help to redefine the identity of cities. In this redefinition of urban identities one of the main strategies seems to be the transformation of the urban landscape into a spectacle. Events such as the Olympics, World Exhibitions and other mega-events are spectacles by nature. They are meant to attract the media attention to one particular place. But also certain buildings can work as a spectacle (in Toronto one can think of the Sky Dome with its opening roof in the summer for baseball games, or the CN Tower as the highest free standing structure in the world which also is host to a number of entertainment facilities). So the building as a spectacle is nothing really new. But what is new, I want to argue here, is that also the process of creating built environments has become a spectacle. The rather fast production of images seems to become more and more important in the competitive environment of a global economy. Cities can advertise themselves and therefore, strengthen their images as places of success. Since real-estate investment is speculative by definition and often is based on emotion more than on experience, it is important to construct an image of a secure and solid investment. The notion of better looking cities -- what ever that means -- evokes trust in potential investors. Therefore it is to no surprise that city governments are very much interested in the physical improvement of the built environment. The competition between city governments in a global economy seem to have caused a new type of urban politics in which the investors have more influence and real estate investment increases in importance. While cities have been trying to attract investments in real estate for a long time, this kind of politics is different insofar as it relies on image production and the use of the media for promoting this image to a broader audience. The consequence is that local politics is no longer about the well being of the city and its inhabitants but about 'big issues'. I now want to draw your attention to Berlin which underwent a major reorientation after the fall of the Wall. While Berlin seems to be a special case (due to its particular history) I want to argue that the processes that one can identify in Berlin are processes that take place on a global scale. Therefore, cities such as Toronto can learn something from Berlin [...] Ute Lehrer (Brock University) ... |
Ute Lehrer - Copyright 2001