A year after the city staged an Olympic games intended to provide a legacy of revitalization for East London, Oliver Wainwright checks in on the progress. While the early results are 'not auspicious', he still finds reason for optimism.
"Presented as a benevolent behemoth of fast-track regeneration, the Games were supposed to leave behind a shiny new world of 12,000 homes and 10,000 jobs, set amid the rolling hills of the largest new park in Europe. It would be the miracle cure for the maligned East End, cleansing a swath of the Lower Lea valley – a site conveniently branded as a toxic dumping ground, at the nexus of London's poorest boroughs."
"Walking down Stratford High Street, along the south-east border of the Olympic park, the signs are not auspicious," Wainwright observes. "At every junction of this roaring A-road sprouts a steroidal tower, each clad in ever more lurid colours, transforming the street into a gauntlet of competing ambitions. Looming over adjacent council estates, these brash totems are a monument to Olympian greed."
However, he continues, "Despite all the blunders around the edge of the site, there are reasons to be optimistic. The communities within could yet be successful. But an uneasy fact remains: that building on the site of a global event – making workable streets from tarmac wastes and weaving housing around velodromes – is a difficult and expensive way of producing a good city."
FULL STORY: London's Olympics legacy faces early disqualification
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UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
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Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research