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- murty, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13http://duggmirror.com/design/Design_for_London_and_the_2012_Olympics/
- vdxc, on 09/29/2008, -1/+10Yet another project that will have many issues, like many other projects by the British Government it will:
a) cost at least twice as much as initially predicted, (Wembley Stadium?)
b) Be at least a year late, maybe even 2. (The Gherkin?)
c) Fall apart after a year or two of use. (Millenium Dome anyone?)
As far as i'm concerned, our government should stop spending money on pleasures and improve a failing education system and an in-debt health service. - edzieba, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10d) be almost entirely useless.
e.g; plans to build a bullet train line terminating in Stratford. STRATFORD. Who would want to go to Stratford in the first place, let alone in enough of a hurry to warrant a bullet train. - slowmo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I think there need to be more concrete walkways.
- scabbers, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Five quatloos says they don't get it finished in time.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8But the cold war helped you!
- phatvolvo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Korkmaz proves that you don't need to know capitalization to be a capitalist!
- jellomizer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I hope your not serious. If you aren't you really need to relax a bit. We are not in a total war, we are not rationing food for the war effort or have a war based economy. The United States has plenty of resources to aid in a large building complex. I am sure there are thousands of contractors who would jump at the chance to work on this project. I think it is more the fact that American Labor is expensive compared to the rest of the world.
- hakz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5God I'm not looking forward to the increases in prices though. Things are expensive as they are and I know they are increasing
- superspud, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Well, it doesn't really have anything to do with the rest of the country. It is London's infrastructure that is going to be improved with this stadium, not the entire country. Cardiff, Manchester, and all the other cities won't see any improvements, and so shouldn't have to foot a part of the bill (how much the other cities do pay is still up for debate however)
- mfratt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I say they use the Rush 2112 font.
- jkleinfeld, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I hope the Olympics clears up some of the problems troubling London.
The area that they're renovating for the main bulk of the Olympics is at the moment a dilapidated area.
And crime is a problem in the South of London too. - hiPpymIck, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5@Korkmaz
you do realise that your profit is not money in the bank untill you actually sell your house
replace it with some thing cheaper and then pocket the difference...?(eg downsizing)
also
the house price spiral in uk has nothing to do with the Olympics - monkzero, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Great ideas. Can't wait to see the complete after picture. Fun to see how one big event can change the country to making an awesome place.
- Brodels, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3There is an image library on the 2012 website which has all the photos used in the article and more, for those like me who just like to look at the pretty pictures.
http://www.london2012.org/en/news/press+room/Images/Imagestodownload/ - sirdaz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Waaheey!! Millennium dome finally may be used decently for a change. Or O2 as it is called now.
- sonycam, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4@mporcheron
Umm, who told you that Wembley was built by the government? It's a football stadium, built by the Football Association.
As for the rising costs, I've studied this as part of my course. The majority of the rising costs is for housing and accomodation which is coming under the 'Olympics' blanket. The area needed new housing, so now the department for housing is pinning the costs of construction as part of the olympics (eventhough it has nothing to do with the games).
Throwing another £10 billion into the NHS isn't going to solve much. If you think about the huge effects and opportunities created by the olympics (tourism, jobs, prosperity, increase fitness, facilities, ect) then you'll see that it's not all bad now, is it? - eam52guy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2blom I think the idea is that if there area is regenerated over the next 6 years, it'll help. Not specifically anti-crime measures, but improving an area usually has that effect.
- Angostura, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Sounds like *you* want it to fail.
- antdude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2http://duggmirror.com/design/Design_for_London_and_the_2012_Olympics/
- Angostura, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I live locally and paying more seems fair enough to me.
- Angostura, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Ummm, well the most recent poll I can find:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/articles/2006/12/12/olympics_organisers_survey_feature.shtml
showed "Public support across Britain for the Olympics is at 79 percent"...
I've no doubt those figures has slumped a bit, but I would be interested in your source for the assertion that it is "unpopular". I'm not a sports fan, but I'm looking forward to it tremendously.
Quite a lot of the funding is coming from the Lottery, by the way - so people are paying from their own pockets, not through taxation. - z0ltar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This project is going to go way over budget. Probably about 10 times. Everybody knows that.
I have no doubt that parts of London need rebuilding and improved infrastructure. If they invested this amount of money in transport and housing then that would vastly improve investment and business in the area.
But the area is already rich.
There is poverty in the South East of England but sadly this project will not deal with it. The problem is the distribution. The South East of England has a huge amount of money. London attracts a lot of the money and talent from the UK and the World. Its a densely populated area.
There is also the problem of the Olympics being undemocratic organization that leaves it more open to corrupt practices.
Have games. Have public capital projects. Have celebrations.
But do we need to organize it here in this way?
Zolt - Angostura, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@liquidizer
You pay for my share of the Trident update (about £76billion?) and I'll pay your cut of the Olympics. OK? - Angostura, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Why have it this way? well think about it for a minute, what would you do with the venue afterwards otherwise, bulldoze it flat? You're going to have something left so it makes sense to plan for what to do with it. There are/were already urban regeneration plans for the area, so why not tie them together? If they did everything separately, there would be immediate criticism about disconnected organisation, re-inventing the wheel, different organisations pulling in different directions. Can they really win?
- liquidizer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Regarding that survey, it's not independent data. It's come from the bodies organising the Olympics. It all comes down to how you phrase the question. You'll get different answers to these two questions:
"Do you believe British sportsmen should be given the opportunities presented by, and London should be regenerated through, the hosting of the Olympics?"
"Will you personally pay at least £200+ in additional taxes so that we can have the Olympics here in London?"
Personally, I think approval ratings as high as 79% are suspect. And given what we know about how tax-averse the voting public is, I don't believe 79% would say 'yes' to the second question at all. - liquidizer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@Angostura
Let me know if you fancy paying my share, because I'm not in favour and was never given the chance to express a vote against it. - Angostura, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3@edzieba
Uh, the Eurostar station at Stratford pre-dates the Olympic bid by a good few years. Who would want a Eurostar terminal in Stratford? How about the multinationals in Docklands or anyone who wants quick interchange with the Central line?
Personally, as someone who lives fairly locally to the site (and will be paying for much of it through my taxes) I'm pretty excited by the Olympics coming to town, and taking my kids there. Cynicism is sometimes too simple. - HuwJanus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Angostura: Its not about *wanting* it to fail. Its about understanding the way in which the government works and why, and then understanding that because of money and a fair bit of sheer stupidity, this project is already *doomed* to fail.
The people who would actually be capable of planning and building this thing will not even be considered. Money will pass (Or has already done so) and specific people will be appointed to get things done. They will rake in huge amounts of personal cash, fail abysmally and then vanish into (wealthy) obscurity, possibly even making room for another person who will also be chosen by the government as well.
This is the way things work in the UK. There are contractors who could build this project and make it actually work, but they either cost too much, or are in the way of someone who has the right connections. Abilities have little to do with it unless you wear the right tie, play golf with the right people, went to the right school or shake hands in the right way. Very sad, but true nonetheless. - GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1There is plenty of central funding but yeah I feel sorry for the London council tax payers, they are being screwed even more.
- liquidizer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@Angostura
I'm as strongly opposed to Trident as you are, but I think I understand your point - ie, that we all have to pay for things we don't agree with. I just don't think that argument extends to staging a sports event, which is after all just entertainment. Although I'm opposed to Trident, I can see how defence is a valid role of government. I don't think providing entertainment is. - resplence, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Thanks. PingMag really needs to start investing in some servers, it goes down too quickly and we end up missing some great articles like this.
- Angostura, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@liquidizer
Well, it's the only poll I can find. So, until you can come up with a better measure of public opinion it will have to do. - zanet, on 08/27/2008, -0/+1i see the full guide is on Guide: Venues for Olympic Events London 2012
http://digg.com/olympics/Guide_Venues_for_Olympic_ ... - scorchedearth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I am sure the city of London will end up losing money on the project just like almost every other city that has hosted the Olympics.
- MiNGLED, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yes I resent paying more for a vanity project for the Government, as do all the charities who's funding is being removed to pay for the games. £10billion spent on the games for just 2 weeks, many of the venues are only temporary and they still haven't found someone to take on the main stadium after the games have finished. Nearly all the infrastructure improvements are not related to the games and would have gone ahead anyway.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@Korkmaz
It's not really a profit if you can't sell it and live somewhere else just as good. The problem is that everywhere is expensive, so no-one wins. - MiNGLED, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This part of London does need investment, for both housing and transport. A white elephant of an Olympics is taking money away from this.
- liquidizer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm not sure that's a valid argument: it's the only data we have, so we must trust it, even though it comes from an organisation with a clear and overwhelming business bias in the direction the data leans. You've got to admit that the statistic comes from at least a biased source, and potentially an unreliable source when it comes to information about how much the general public likes what it's doing.
This is why organisations do surveys that claim a lot of people agree with them. Because the general public doesn't question how the survey was conducted or how the figures were arrived at.
It's often a good yardstick of how reliable a survey is to ask whether it would still have been published if the outcome was opposite - in this case, if 79% were opposed to the Olympics. If not, the survey isn't proper research, it's just PR puffery. - Blom, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2@jkleinfeld
How is a few weeks of sports in east london going to have any impact on crime in south london? I assume you mean it will just move to the east for those few weeks - get while the gettin's good and all that.
I also hope that readers don't think London's 2 worst problems are crime in the south and run down buildings around the hackney marshes... ;-) - liquidizer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1deleted
- GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2All about Blair's legacy. When the liar started ranting about legacy as if he was some prophet we should have dismissed him. We didn't take our chance and this is the result.
- Grimdotdotdot, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2And for some reason, us Londoner's are paying more taxes so this can get built.
Because, obviously, it's got nothing to do with the rest of the country =[ - HuwJanus, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2The whole thing is just the usual hot-air spouted by the government. If, and its a BIG IF, this project gets even half finished it will be a disaster of epic proportions and will cost far more than anticipated. Should any part of this actually be completed it will be done by cutting corners and plastering a pretty, but very thin veneer over the festering underbelly of the areas developed.
I'm not at all sure that this will be usable by the time the Olympics come around and I would not be surprised to see the venue moved from London because of the failure of the project. As for the money, quite right, other cities will not benefit at all and so should not have to pay, however, those living near the project will not gain much either (Unless you listen to the nonsense the government spout), and since the overwhelming feeling in the areas to be developed has always been that it should NOT go ahead in any way shape or form, neither should they.
The Government want this disaster waiting to happen. Not the people. So the government should have to pay. All that money will of course go into government pockets because this project WILL FAIL in any case. - GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I've not seen figures that show majority support before. Still the point stands, those who want it should pay for it. I am a sports fan but tend to actually pay for my sport with my own money rather than expecting the tax payer to cover it. They should go around the people who voted in favour and ask for their contributions.
I don't see how state backed robbery is justified for a sporting occasion. - Angostura, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1deleted
- GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Another glorious waste of the tax payers money by this NL government. I'm glad NL destroyed everyones pensions in order to pay for the Olympics.
I'm sure someone will respond about the 'Honour of hosting the Olympics' but I'd rather the honour of having my money back in my pocket. If people want the Olympics they should pay for it with their own money rather than via taxation. Then again it shows why democracy is a fraud, this is yet another unpopular and frivolous waste of money by our government. - quomen, on 10/12/2007, -10/+4The things the US could build if not embroiled in war...
- HideoKojima, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1http://duggmirror.com
- habenneas, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1It doesn't really matter. The world is going to end that year anyway.
/Hab.
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