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https://theconversation.com/tokyo-olympics-how-hosting-the-games-disrupts-local-lives-and-livelihoods-162893>
"In the run up to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, the favela community of Vila
Autódromo was virtually destroyed. It sat on prime real estate at the water’s
edge, in the up and coming West Zone neighbourhood. Dwellings were demolished,
and hundreds of families were pressured to leave.
One long-term resident, Luiz Claudio Silva, lost the home he had built with his
wife over two decades. “Where the Olympics have been,” he said in 2018, “there
is a trail of demolitions, of destruction of life stories… this is very clear,
it’s obvious, the only people who don’t see it are those who don’t want to.”
Silva’s was one of the 22,059 households evicted in the build up to the Rio
Games. And his story is not unique.
Whether it’s the young people and local businesses left traumatised by
evictions due to London 2012 Games, the elderly tenants whose homes were
destroyed to make way for the new National Stadium in Shinjuku, ahead of Tokyo
2020 or the unhoused people fighting for their camp ahead of Los Angeles 2028,
displacement is as Olympic as medals and records. It begins during the planning
stage and continues throughout the live staging, its effects written into the
post-event legacy period."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
