Wukesong used to be an old and non-descript neighborhood in
Western Beijing until a new Olympic basketball stadium with a
seating capacity of 18,000 spectators broke ground there in March
2005.
The community, which had not seen any major urban project for
decades, has since undergone a major makeover. The Wukesong Indoor
Stadium will become a center-piece of a sprawling culture and
sports complex for cultural, sports, leisure and commercial
activities after 2008.
The project is owned and managed by Beijing Wukesong Culture and
Sports Center Co Ltd, which was the first proprietor to sign a
contract with the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee.
The most immediate benefit for the community residents may be
that their properties are now much more valuable. Prices for new
homes being built near the huge construction site have been going
up since the Olympic project began. "Wukesong was not a very
dynamic area in the past. We've been waiting 50 years for an
exciting project like this," a local official admitted to the
media.
The Wukesong venue is worth special mention here because it has
been designed as part of an Olympic legacy to the Chinese capital
as well as for 100 years of service as the largest leisure centre
in Western Beijing. The venue also contributes to the metropolitan
development and regeneration of the ancient city.
Another example of such sustained development is the National
Indoor Stadium. One of the three main venues of the Beijing Olympic
Games, it will have a more modest look when it is completed in 2007
than when originally planned, to achieve cost effectiveness.
Like Wukesong, the National Indoor Stadium is also to be run by
a local proprietor after the Games and it has been intended to be
self-financing from the very beginning. Under cost control, the new
Olympic stadium will meet all required technical specifications to
stage events such as gymnastics and handball. It will hold
commercial activities after 2008 as a way to support itself.
The concept of sustainability is all the more important as
Beijing has just announced a massive investment of an estimated 470
billion yuan (US$59.5 billion) in infrastructure on thousands of
local projects that would go far beyond constructing or renovating
new sporting facilities. According to the city's new master plan,
projects to ease city traffic, improve energy and water supply and
better the city environment will be completed before the Games. By
2008, Beijing will also have a hyper-modern international air
service hub.
As the city uses the Olympics to introduce large-scale urban
development, long-term economic and environmental impact will
deserve closer scrutiny. It might be helpful to heed advice from
some Nobel laureates during a forum in Beijing in 2005 that whether
a host city turns a profit with the Games depends ultimately on how
it makes use of its infrastructure and sports venues 10-20 years
after the Games.
(China Daily October 13, 2006)