http://geostadia.blogspot.com/2010/12/2016-olympic-village-apartments-to-cost.html
It is frightening to me that the tactics of capital are so transparent and frankly uncreative. The cost for constructing these units has been calculated at about $400,000 Brazilian real ($680,000 Canadian dollars). So even the math bears remarkable similarities to our own Olympic Village. At the very least, those of us in Vancouver should be happy to know that we are not the only one who are subsidizing houses for the rich while people sit miserable and homeless only a few blocks away.
With that said, actions like these cry out for analysis and organization on our part. First of all, these events dismantle the current neo-liberal myth that the state does not/should not intervene in the economy. This is a lie, and a bald faced one at that. While in the past the state at times provided an outlet for broader society to represent its interests, and at times intervened in the economy to promote benefits to regular people, it currently does little more that promote the conditions necessary for capital flow. In their own words, the state sees its primary purpose as "promoting a good business climate"
In the case of the Vancouver, and now the Rio Olympic village, we see a clear example of the state working to facilitate the reinvestment of surplus capital and generate speculative profit for real estate developers. Further more mega events like the Olympics are used to move this speculation around, providing further outlets for surplus capital over time. A mobile Olympics provides reason for a building boom somewhere every 2 years as the number of empty Olympic villages/venues around the world continues to grow.
So what do we do about it...first of all lets give up our fear of assuming state power, if it was used to benefit people in the past it should be used to do so again. We need to re-assert our claims to this project, will it work perfectly...no...but if we don't contest this battle we will be stuck with tax funded real-estate speculation dressed up like social housing. (that's what we have now, by the way, thanks to Gregor and crew)
I guess I have a bit of hope surrounding this issue, in Vancouver at least, the construction and management of the Olympic Village in Vancouver has been such a high profile boondoggle that it has seem to create a crack in the viability of this model. The failure of this project has at least made clear what it was in the first place, a massive influx of public tax dollars designed only to benefit real estate developers. At the very least it serves as a rallying cry for those who demand that space and the city we live in be constructed socially, designed to meet human needs, and not those of private profit.
