Study shows 2 million displaced for recent Olympics

June 12, 2007 (WLS) -- As Chicago looks to host the 2016 Olympic Games, a new study finds that over the last 20 years more than 2 million people have been displaced as a direct result of the Olympics. Many were low-income renters who were forced out when rents soared soon after a city was awarded the Olympics.

If Chicago's big for the 2016 Summer Games is successful, the Olympic stadium and village would be built on the city's South Side, where some residents wonder how the games would affect their property values and the quality of life.

In Sydney, home prices near government wasteland developed for the games more than doubled in seven years. Rents increased 40 percent, forcing some to move further away from the heart of Sydney. Here in Chicago, Mayor Daley insists no one will be forced from their homes for the construction of Olympic venues. What he can't control is how much it may cost to live near newly developed sites.

For 40 years Lois Brownfield has owned her home a block-and-a-half from Washington Park. She has seen this neighborhood through the good times and bad.

"I'm all for improvement," said Brownfield.

If history is a lesson, landing the Olympics may be as good as gold for property owners near key venues. But some countries have forcibly evicted residents who stood in the path of progress.

As it prepares to host the summer games next year, Beijing holds the title of removing the most residents: 1.2 million. Seoul, South Korea, evicted 720,000 people to build its Olympic venues. In Atlanta, gentrification is blamed for displacing nearly 30,000 low-income people. And that's the concern among some who live near the proposed Olympic Stadium in Washington Park.

"If you don't own, you're gone. That's how it's going to be when the Olympics are around here," said Kenneth Green, South Side resident.

"Chicago 2016 will take a balanced approach -- working with the community and city and ensuring anywhere the Olympics touch, it will benefit that community," said Patrick Sandusky, Chicago 2016 spokesman.

In Chicago, a temporary Olympic Stadium is planned for open land in Washington Park. The village would be built over a truck yard south of McCormick Place, so the mayor says no one will be forced out as has happened in other cities.

"Athens and London are rebuilding their community outside of that, so they've taken more residential property, and we're not," said Mayor Daley.

Experts believe the already fast-gentrifying area from the South Loop to Bronzeville -- near the proposed Olympic Village -- would see the biggest increase in home values. While those who live near Washington Park, like Lois Brownfield, hope they will be able to be a part of a neighborhood on the rise.

"They hype it up, and draw you into it, it's more like we're hypnotized," said Brownfield.

One of the stated missions of the Olympic movement is to leave a lasting -- and positive -- legacy in cities where the games are played. Over the years, host cities have interpreted that to mean build in impoverished areas and use the Olympic building boom to remake huge swaths of a city.

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