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Toronto regularly ranks as one of the world's best cities to live in – recently coming fourth in the annual Economist liveability list. Canada’s largest city is rated highly for stability, healthcare, culture, environment, education and infrastructure; as well as headline-grabbing buildings courtesy of Frank Gehry, Will Alsop and Daniel Libeskind, it offers the kind of vibrant, walkable downtown of which urbanists’ dreams are made.
But Toronto has always wanted more; in particular, to muscle its way into the elite clique of Olympic hosts. In fact, the city has already failed in its bid to host the games – not once, but five times.
Not only has Toronto lost out to a clutch of international locations, it’s had something of a thrashing at home too. Montreal beat it to the nomination for the bank-busting 1976 summer games, and Calgary and Vancouver have both recently hosted the winter version.
Ever since Barcelona’s ambitious city-wide plans for Olympic-led urban regeneration ahead of the 1992 games, cities bidding for the event have been obsessed with replicating the Catalan capital’s success – and academics have been obsessed by the bidding process. The spoils afforded a city successful in its bid to host the games, from iconic architecture to global media attention and a lucrative tourism trade, have been reviewed and dissected with fervour. The study of the Olympics has spawned consultancies, academic research centres, conferences and university courses.
Missing from the debate, however, are the cities that have bid for the golden prize but lost – because, as the golfing great Walter Hagen once remarked, “no one remembers who came in second”. No one, that is, other than Canadian Dr Robert Oliver, assistant professor at Virginia Tech. Toronto’s failed efforts (for the 1960, 1964, 1976, 1996 and 2008 Games) became the focus of his PhD at Queen’s University, Ontario, and the subject of two published papers.
In his first paper, published in 2011, Oliver focuses on the politics, legal wrangling, community protests, media reports and evolution of the plans for the redevelopment of the waterfront that started in the mid-1950s. Like many post-industrial cities, Toronto’s derelict waterfront had long been earmarked for redevelopment. The city’s first bid committee suggested that achieving the political will, addressing the complex land ownership issues and attracting the necessary investment would be a cinch with a successful Olympic bid. John Bitove, former leader of one of Toronto’s many bid committees, remarked: “We’re not just trying to get the Olympics … we’re trying to rebuild the city.”
Oliver’s second paper, published at the start of this year, reviews the city’s lack of a coherent sports policy, funding and facilities, and the frenzied wave of commissions and government committees, by-laws and policies that followed each rejection by the International Olympic Committee.
After the last bid for the 2008 games failed, mutterings pronounced Canada a “sporting backwater”. Toronto’s Department of Parks, Forestry and Recreation joined the chorus. They’d reviewed the city’s facilities, from community centres to swimming pools, and concluded that the recovery bill would run to more than C$200m (£108m). Comparisons were drawn with Melbourne: another high-ranking liveable city, host of the 2006 Commonwealth Games and home to five major stadiums. The review suggested the Australian city could “offers us a lesson: if we build, the world will come. If we don’t, our best athletes will leave home.”
According to Oliver, the “desire to use the Olympic Games as a vehicle to kickstart the comprehensive redevelopment of Toronto’s waterfront” was problematic, undermining the contribution recreational sport and its infrastructure could have made to the city. Failing to invest in sports infrastructure at both grassroots and professional level was the 2008 bid’s downfall, and the 13-acre waterfront site is now due to accommodate 1,900 residential units priced betweeen C$300,000 and C$2m – with affordable housing, as always, to follow later.
Oliver concludes that “Toronto has developed a legacy of Olympic begging, with the city consistently asking what the Olympic Games can do for the city of Toronto, instead of demonstrating what the city of Toronto could do for the Olympic movement.”
What Oliver doesn’t cover in these papers is why Toronto would even contemplate another bid for the summer Olympics. Canada is not a nation known for its summer sports – think Canadian sports and its ice hockey, curling and the vast snow fields of Whistler, not beach volleyball, athletics or fencing. But would bidding for the cold weather version bring success?
In January this year, Toronto’s ever-controversial mayor, Rob Ford, confirmed that the city would not bid for another Olympics before the 2028 games, at the earliest. By accountant Ernst and Young’s estimations, another bid would cost C$50-60m, a figure the mayor’s office considered too costly. In the meantime, though, the city has downsized. Toronto was successful in securing the right to host next year’s Pan American Games, and Robert Oliver intends to return this summer to consider the preparations.
Kat Martindale is a researcher, urbanist and founder of Cities Research. Follow her on Twitter at @KatMartindale and @CitiesResearch #ResearchFriday
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