伦敦欲借奥运会重塑国际都市形象

    今天夏天将诞生人类历史上赞助最多、开支最大、观众人数最多的一届奥运会。但背后的真实情况是什么呢？它其实意味着一座国际性都市即将重塑形象。

    预计伦敦将为今年8月举行的2012夏季奥运会花费400多亿美元。专家们表示，当地经济将因此小幅下滑2%左右，此外还会出现短期净亏损的经济影响。

    “不管是伦敦、纽约还是巴黎，这些国际性城市是否应该举办奥运会？奥运会是否真的对它们造成了影响？对于这些问题，人们看法不一，”纽约大学（NYU）教授康斯坦丁•康托科斯塔说。“但在我看来，有一个令人信服的证据表明，那些规模较小、尚处于发展中的城市应该主办奥运会。”换句话说，伦敦不应该主办奥运会。康托科斯塔最近完成了一篇报告，探讨了奥运会结束之后的八年时间里会对主办城市的房地产市场产生哪些影响。

    那么，雾都是否后悔申办奥运会呢？并非如此。纽约大学的另一位学者、体育营销教授鲍勃•柏兰德在上个月前往伦敦，对奥运会可能将造成哪些经济影响进行了研究。“不可否认的是，对于奥运会可以带来的收获，我从来没见过哪个国家像英国这么现实，”他说。“他们很清楚有什么经济风险，但他们却只是津津乐道于畅谈机遇。”

    的确，伦敦的这次机遇就是吸引新企业和新居民，同时改变形象。全世界都认为，伦敦拥有成熟的经济和完善的金融体系，可是在那里定居、经商则枯燥无味。不过，奥运会拥有不可思议的社会影响力——今年夏天的这届奥运会超过了以往任何一届，这得归功于Twitter的即时性——而伦敦将会利用这个时髦因素。

    从某种程度上说，我们已经看到伦敦在为营造其吸引力做准备：他们在白金汉宫外成立了骑兵仪仗队，还打算用市中心各处的其他活动来作为今夏奥运会比赛期间的余兴节目，好让观众们一睹伦敦的风采（而且时机恰到好处：这将是第一届完全用HD高清拍摄的奥运会）。“我在伦敦时，发现他们甚至通过不易察觉的方式把观众的注意力从比赛本身转移到展示伦敦的当地活动上，”柏兰德回忆说。不幸的是，尚不清楚所有这些举措是否能带来长远效益。可能需要多年时间才能知道，（最能为伦敦重新注入活力的）年轻专业人士和大型公司是否会被奥运会转播节目中的美丽镜头吊起胃口，最终迁往伦敦。

    译者：千牛絮

    This summer will bring the most sponsored, most spent-on, most visited Olympics in human history. But the real story? A global city is set to re-brand itself.

    London is expected to drop more than $40 billion dollars to host the world this August, and experts suggest the local economy will suffer a slight (about 2%) negative displacement of business as a result -- in addition to a short-term net loss for economic impact.

    "There's a real divide now over whether these global cities should even host the Games -- is there truly any impact for them, the Londons, the New Yorks, the Parises?" says NYU professor Constantine Kontokosta, who recently completed a report about the effect that hosting the Olympics has on a city's housing market over the following eight years. "There's a compelling argument, to me, that these smaller, developing cities should be the ones hosting." In other words, not London.

    So does the Old Smoke regret its bid? Not hardly. Sports marketing professor Bob Boland, another NYU academic, visited London last month to research the likely economic ramifications the Olympics will have. "I've never seen a country more realistic about what they're going to get from this, less in denial," he says. "They know the economic risks, but they all keep talking about the opportunity."

    Indeed, London's opportunity here is to attract new companies, new residents, and change its image. The world sees London, with its mature economy and buttoned-up banking world, as a stodgy, unexciting place to live and do business. But the Olympic Games have incredible social power -- this summer more than ever, thanks to the instantaneous nature of Twitter -- and London will look to harness the hip factor.

    You can already see the city preparing its appeal, in a sense; they've set up horse parades outside of Buckingham Palace and other events all over the city center meant to milk the many interstitial shots that audiences will see of London in the summertime. (And good timing: This will be the first Olympics shot entirely in HD.) "I found when I was there that they are even subtly shifting focus from the actual games themselves to the local events that show London," Boland recalls. Unfortunately, the jury won't be in on whether all of this worked for quite some time. It could take years to judge whether young professionals and big businesses, the groups that could most inject life back into London's population, have their relocation appetites whetted by Olympic broadcast beauty shots.