What If Chicago Had Been Awarded the 2016 Olympics? Part 3

Is it possible Chicago still hasn't recovered from a decision -- and subsequent fallout -- made 15 years ago?

Rendering of the 80,000-seat temporary Olympic Stadium that would’ve hosted the 2016 Olympic Games, if Chicago had beaten out Rio de Janeiro. It would’ve been located in Washington Park, on the city’s South Side. Source: chicagotribune.com

Part 1

Part 2

Time to answer that question: what would a 2016 Olympics meant to Chicago? After looking at the examples of the last two American Olympics, in Los Angeles in 1984 and Atlanta in 1996, I’ve come to some conclusions on how it could have played out in the Windy City. Here’s what I think we would’ve seen in the subsequent eight years, and the possible trajectory of the city going forward.

The Olympics would’ve accelerated the revitalization of Chicago’s south lakefront – yes, gentrification. One of Chicago’s main thrusts for pursuing the Olympics was to establish a revitalization foundation for the south lakefront, and the broader South Side of the city. It’s just my hunch, but I believe former mayor Richard M. Daley viewed the Olympics as a legacy project that would’ve demonstrated his commitment to the revitalization of the entire city, not just parts of it. If successful, the 2016 Games would’ve opened eyes to Chicago’s south lakefront in the same way that the Chicago Cubs, Wrigley Field and Superstation WGN cable broadcasting brought attention to the north lakefront in the 1980s and ‘90s.

I say “accelerate” because the south lakefront revitalization has been in the works for some time already. I noted in a Crain's Chicago Business article I co-authored with Ed Zotti and Mike Rothschild in 2021 that revitalization was happening, but at a slower pace than what happened up north:

“The 1997 film, "Love Jones," set in an undefined neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, has long been a cult favorite among Black people. It explores life and love among Black professionals, artists and intellectuals—a group rarely seen in movies or on television. A lot of Black professionals yearn for the kind of neighborhood and lifestyle shown in the film.

Given the chance, many Black people would prefer to live in communities where they were well represented, either as the majority or a significant minority. It would mean their culture, perspective and lifestyle were validated.

The 2020 census gives us reason to think such a neighborhood—a diverse but predominantly Black community of middle-class professionals—is now emerging on Chicago’s south lakefront. We believe this is a historic opportunity for both Black people and Chicago and propose a way to make the most of it at modest cost.

In a cluster of nine south lakefront communities extending from the Near South Side to South Shore, the population is growing, the percentage of college graduates is increasing, home values are rising and crime is falling.

The south lakefront (and the lakefront generally) is gaining people, while interior neighborhoods are losing them.”

Data we collected for the article found that Black college-educated professionals are becoming a major factor on the south lakefront. Black college graduates in Chicago have increased by 24,000, or 24%, between 2010 and 2020 – this during a time when the non-college-grad Black population age 25+ dropped by 48,000. Black college grads live throughout the city, but significant concentrations can be found along the south lakefront, where in some areas they account for more than half of college grads.

An acceleration in south lakefront revitalization would’ve produced something else as well…

Chicago would’ve gotten a population bump, instead of treading water for the last two decades. Chicago’s resisted the demographic rebound that other major cities saw through the 2010s. The city added about 51,000 residents between 2010 and 2020, or 1.9% (2.695 million to 2.746 million). However, the post-Covid population dip that most major cities witnessed hit Chicago too, and the city’s 2023 population is roughly equal to its 2020 total.

But demographically speaking, Chicago’s only been losing population because of the outflow of Black residents. Witness this chart:

Since 2000, growth has been steady in Chicago among its White, Latino, Asian and other/multiple race groups. After falling by 1.9% between 2000-2010, the city’s non-Black population rebounded to grow 8.4% between 2010-2020. For the entire 20-year period, Chicago’s non-Black population grew by 6.3%. That’s comparable with the overall growth of other major American cities.

Yet Chicago’s Black population, seen in the dotted red line above, has fallen by 25% since 2000. The outflow means that Blacks slid from being the largest plurality in the city (36.4%) in 2000 to the second largest, behind Whites (33.1%) and in a virtual tie with Latinos (28.8% versus 28.7%) by 2020. The trend suggests that the number of Latinos has surpassed Blacks in this decade.

In absolute figures, that corresponds to a loss of more than 260,000 Black Chicagoans since 2000, while all other races and ethnicities gained 116,000. Any increase or simply the stabilization of Black population loss would’ve resulted in continued overall population increase for the city.

It’s almost as if Blacks live in a completely different city than other Chicagoans.

I’m guessing that in the buildup toward the Olympics, this demographic dynamic would’ve garnered more attention than it did at the time, especially nationally. The south lakefront’s revitalization could’ve created another potential outcome:

Chicago probably would’ve been the American gentrification story of the 2010s. Sure, New York became the poster child for the impacts of gentrification in the 2010’s, most notably in upper Manhattan and in Brooklyn where affluent White residents were moving into longtime Black and Latino neighborhoods. But Chicago’s deeper and more troubling history with segregation probably would’ve put more attention on the issue here.

Chicago would’ve gotten a significant economic boost. This is speculative, of course; it’s difficult enough to quantify the economic impact of something that actually did happen, much less speculating on the “what if” of something that did not. But that was the intent of the Olympics anyway. City leaders wanted to boost the global economic profile of Chicago. And there is no better way to advertise a city than to host an event that will draw tens of thousands of elite athletes, hundreds of thousands of spectators, and billions of television viewers.

Chicago’s political and business leaders would’ve worked overtime pulling aside colleagues from around the world to tout the merits of the city. The Chicago contingent would’ve noted Chicago’s lower business costs and general cost of living compared to similarly-sized cities worldwide. They would’ve highlighted the economic diversity of the city, its talent pool, its location, its infrastructure, its role as the business and cultural capital of the American interior. And it would’ve worked.

The Olympics may have smoothed the political path for future mayor Rahm Emanuel. This one’s a little trickier. At the time of the bidding, Chicago’s corporate leadership was solidly behind the Olympics, aligned with Mayor Daley. As I mentioned earlier, I believe Mayor Daley viewed the Olympics as a legacy project on par with the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. I’m also assuming that in 2007, when bids were announced, Mayor Daley realized he was entering his last term. He chose not to run for a seventh term in 2011.

At the same time, House Rep. Rahm Emanuel had a rising national profile. After guiding Democrats to taking over the House of Representatives in 2006, Emanuel followed through on his ambitions. That resulted in him becoming Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama in 2009. Once Daley announced he would not run again, Emanuel announced he would seek the mayor’s office.

Emanuel would go on to win in 2011, defeating Jesus “Chuy” Garcia with 55% of the vote. But the first of two watershed moments in Emanuel’s tenure took place just two years into office. In 2013 Chicago Public Schools announced it would close 49 underutilized and underperforming schools, in what the Chicago Sun-Times called the “largest school closure in U.S. history.” The closures were ostensibly made to close deep budget deficits and improve school performance at the same time. However, the vast majority of closures took place in Black neighborhoods, the same ones rapidly declining in population as noted above. That meant that the closures were viewed as institutional abandonment in Black communities on the city’s South and West sides.

It's possible that the infrastructure development in the leadup to the Olympics, and the jobs they would’ve produced, could’ve forestalled some of the school closures. A rapidly transforming south lakefront, driven by Olympics investment, would’ve needed some of those schools, as well as new housing, commercial development, and other public amenities. At a minimum, it’s conceivable that the decision to close schools could’ve been delayed until after the Olympics.

That leads to the other watershed moment in the Emanuel administration, and one of the key issues keeping Chicago from even stronger revitalization:

Chicago’s crime problems would’ve become front and center as well. Chicago’s inability to match the impressive violent crime declines seen in New York and Los Angeles has perplexed everyone, especially Chicagoans. Generally speaking, murders in Chicago reached a peak in the early 1970s before moderately falling through the late 1980s. The crack epidemic saw a rise in murders throughout the 1990s, and then another steeper decline in the 2000s and 2010s. Murders have ticked upward since then.

With the Olympics on tap, Laquan McDonald's murder at the hand of a Chicago police officer took place in late 2014, about 18 months before a 2016 Chicago Olympics would’ve begun. The police coverup of the event didn’t become public until late 2015, a mere 6-7 months prior to the Olympics. Could the positive press over the Games been enough to outweigh the negative press of a deadly police shooting? Could the shooting have been enough to concern athletes and spectators. It’s hard to say. For what it’s worth, 1984 Los Angeles was very much in a violent crime wave then. I don’t recall it being a concern mentioned in the media.

In essence, I believe Chicago would’ve been better off with the 2016 Olympics. However, it still wouldn’t have benefitted everyone it could’ve. Chicago would’ve gotten the kind of boost in profile and prestige that Atlanta received from the Olympics, but its higher profile would’ve meant greater benefit. It wouldn’t have been tasked to “save” the Olympics the way the ’84 Los Angeles Games were.

Chicago would have had a stronger identity and clearer idea of its position in the world today, instead of the uncertainty surrounding it since the start of the 21^st century.