Quote:
Originally Posted by Minato Ku
Barcelona was seen as an industrial city. It was pretty far removed from its waterfront. It's old town was rundown. I wouldn't call Barcelona pre-Olympics a major european touristic destination. Neitherless it was already a big european city and Spain was rising in 1990s.
I don't think the Olympics would have had the same effect on Detroit, just like the effect of 1996 Olympics on Atlanta seems to be pretty minimal seen from Europe.
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Atlanta is really the only direct comparable we have to the OP's question, since it's a city of similar size that hosted a modern summer Olympics in the US.
From where I sit, Atlanta has definitely continued to grow and become more important, but it's almost as if 1996 was this turning point between Atlanta being this place of almost incredible growth - not just population growth, but growth in importance/consciousness - for the 3 decades prior to the Olympics compared to the 3 decades since. I mean, here we are 28 years after the Olympics, and Atlanta would be recognizable to someone who traveled from 1996 in a time machine, whereas Atlanta would have been almost unrecognizable in 1996 compared to someone who had time traveled from 1968.
The next closest comparable would be Montreal, even if it's in a different country, because it's a North American city that hosted an Olympics roughly around the same time as Detroit could have, and was a city that was starting to decline.
Montreal's turned around since then but, again, none of that has to do with the Olympics. In fact, I'd argue that without the Olympics, the Canadian and Quebec governments would have been more warm to investing in the necessary infrastructure that Montreal didn't get for almost 3 decades after the Olympics that might have helped it out when it needed it most.