Olympic Envy

There has been plenty written about the impact of hosting the Olympics, including a rather scathing analysis on The Atlantic Cities Web site in late July. The jury is still out on how London will make out in its third effort of hosting the games, but on an emotional level, it's hard not to be jealous.

Watching all of the TV coverage, seeing London mentioned in so many tweets and Facebook status updates, it's hard to not wish that we could swap out Philadelphia for London and imagine that instead of London's once-depressed East End being revitalized, acres of vacant buildings across Philadelphia had been razed and replaced with glimmering new Olympic venues.

Gene Marks seems to think Philly is up to the task, writing on The Philly Post that, in a nutshell, if Atlanta can pull it off, as it did in 1996, than so can Philly. And also in late July, the Philly Shark took a pragmatic look at the possibility and it seems that 2024 would be the earliest Philly could get a bid and the work would have to start now.

If we want to be a world-class city, it's time to start thinking - and dreaming - big. And dreams don't get much bigger than Olympic dreams.