Los Angeles, Watch Out for 2028

The Olympics bring so much joy and happiness to the world - celebration, memories, and excitement - but for those within the communities where the Olympics takes place, it's not so much fun. Instead of excitement, it brings accelerated denitrification to the communities, who wouldn't want that!

In light of the recent 2020 Tokyo Winter Olympics, the people of Los Angeles have become even more worried about the events that will occur for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic games. The Tokyo Olympics completely misplaced the residents of the host cities. Nearly 300 Tokyo households were misplaced for the games to occur. This also happened in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, so it was no shock to the world. The winter Olympics completely divided the people of Tokyo and the Japanese Olympic Committee. The committee came to an agreement that the people of Japan were to have no say in any terms of the event, regardless if it affected the people or not. A survey that took place in May 2021 showed that nearly 83% of respondents did not want the Olympics to take place in Tokyo in light of the harshness and hit of the pandemic. Of course, no one cared.

The Angelino people are next. The 2028 Olympics, even though six years away, are already making strong effects and will make even stronger effects on the denitrification of the Los Angeles community. Los Angeles's already horrible housing problem is only going to get worse. Leonardo Vilchis, a co-founder of the Union de Vecinos, speaks on the issue, “They came to increase property value and push out businesses for our lower-middle-income neighbors. In cities like ours, there is already a tendency to displace poor people, to sacrifice them for projects that are supposed to benefit them, and all of this is accelerated by the Olympics.” The issue here is there is already a major issue. Without the first issue being solved, bringing in more issues is ultimately going to do more harm than good.

A major architecture development in Inglewood, SoFi Stadium, cost nearly five billion dollars and is going to host the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2028 Olympics. The project already completed, which held the 2021 Super Bowl, has already led to increased rents in the area exponentially, pushing low-income community members out. This is just the beginning, with the new LA Clippers stadium being built shortly in the same area. The USC Village, Expo Park, and Banc of California recent developments have also made similar effects on the South Central communities.

The issue stands within the International Olympic Committee, also known as the IOC. The IOC has a long history of reflecting issues in each host city, thus leading to matters that become ignored. Such as Tokyo was deemed safe for the Olympics, despite the raging pandemic happening. Many times the host city has almost no say at all, and the IOC continues anyways. The IOC has also been hiding extreme budget expense issues. The Tokyo Olympics was only supposed to cost $7.3 billion, instead of increasing to a small $30 billion. The Los Angeles Olympics are already seeing this. At first only $5.3 billion to now $6.9 billion, and we are still six years out. Not to mention other costs, like security which is taxpayer's money. Ironically, the taxpayers can't even have a vote on whether they want to host the Olympics. Los Angeles already has an abundance of stadiums and arenas, enough to hold the Olympics without any new developments. The IOC doesn't seem to care.

Many athletes have even spoken out on the IOC’s issues. Alyson Felix, a Los Angeles native, spoke out to the IOC after seeing the Tokyo Olympics unfold. “Seeing more of how the International Olympic Committee operates, it’s not what I thought it was. The athletes are a very minimal part. The athletes do not have a seat at the table when the decisions are being made. Now I get where we fall in the grand scheme of this ginormous thing that makes a ton of money- the athletes don’t see that money. It’s a big machine.”

What she refers to as the “big machine” is exactly right. In light of what locals, viewers, and athletes see happen in the 2020 Tokyo games, LA should be warned. We will soon see people pushed out of their homes, useless stadiums that won't be filled after the end of the games, and a great deal of money wasted.