Whose games? The costs of being 'Olympic citizens' in Beijing

Shin, Hyun Bang ORCID: 0000-0002-1103-9221 and Li, Bingqin (2013) Whose games? The costs of being 'Olympic citizens' in Beijing. Environment and Urbanization, 25 (2). pp. 559-576. ISSN 0956-2478

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Abstract

Mega-events such as the Olympic Games tend to be accompanied by copious media coverage of the negative social impacts of these events, and people in the affected areas are often thought to share similar experiences. The research in this paper, which focused on the Beijing Summer Olympic Games of 2008, unpacks the heterogeneous groups in a particular sector of the housing market to gain a better understanding of how the Games affected different resident groups. The paper critically examines the experience of migrant tenants and Beijing citizens (landlords in particular) in “villages-in-the-city” (known as cheongzhongcun), drawing on their first-hand accounts of the citywide preparations for the Games and the pervasive demolition threats to their neighbourhoods. The paper argues that the Beijing Summer Olympiad produced an uneven, often exclusionary, Games experience for a certain segment of the urban population.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://eau.sagepub.com/
Additional Information:	© 2013 International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
Divisions:	Geography & Environment Asia Centre Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HJ Public Finance H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology J Political Science > JV Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration
Date Deposited:	18 Sep 2013 13:07
Last Modified:	21 Nov 2024 00:10
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/52676

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