Deja Vu - Chicago Reader Style

Way back in the beginning of December '08, we at Sloopin took issue with the Chicago Readers cynical, sarcastic and skeptical take on Chicago's Olympic bid. With that said, today we had a moment of Deja Vu!

As we went through the latest article the same tone was taken. Everything is negative in regard to the Olympics...nothing positive could possibly come from them...or at least that's the way it sounded to us. Anyway, if you're interested in monitoring the comments on today's article here it is; I'm sure we're going to provoke some backlash from the cynics.

Sloopin's comment:

What a surprise...the Reader takes a cynical approach again. You don't trust Chicago's politicians and government; we get it, yada yada yada.

The things that you seem to overlook are many of the positives the Olympics can bring. Like it or not, Chicago remains a city that is often overlooked globally despite its world class characteristics. The Olympics provide a platform that allows the city to showcase itself globally to billions of people (honestly, you can’t put a price on that promotion…ask Barcelona). Not only will this help tourism, it most importantly will help attract regional, domestic and global businesses that will continue to fuel our economy which in turn will provide more money for the issues you raise (potholes, CTA issues, schools, police). Let’s also not forget that the Olympics are a time for the country to shine as well. With that said, I would expect federal funding to increase and fast track a lot of infrastructure improvement projects throughout the city and the region. That’s a huge ‘long-term’ benefit that normally would take decades to come to fruition.

Yes, your skepticism is warranted in some regard, however, in my opinion the positives outweigh the negatives of the bid (but your readers won’t have a chance to evaluate on their own since you don’t state them anywhere in this article). Look, Chicago isn’t perfect, we know. As I like to remind people, no one is holding a gun to your head saying ‘you must live in Chicago’. If you don’t like it, move to the suburbs or maybe your Utopian ‘city’ in Montana where potholes and public transportation don’t exist and the only thing they’re murdering is cattle.