NYC Drops the Baton on The Olympics

On Wenesday New York saw its quest for the Olympics come to a crashing halt. The coveted West Side Stadium project (championed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg) was shot down by a special committee. The Stadum was the catalyst in New York's 2012 Olympic bid. It was also to be used for the New York Jets football team as well as host the 2010 Super Bowl.

Now that is all over. While The Hawk feels that New York losing the Olympics is really not a huge deal (they're New York, they don't need the extra tourism dollars) he does see it as a sign as to how much the "machine" politics of major urban areas has changed over the years.

For decades towns like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington DC, etc were run by political machines that were essentially city-state fiefdoms. The mayors in these towns could make anything happen and were seen almost as urban royalty. Heck, the Daley Dynasty in Chicago even delivered the 1960 election for John Kennedy.

These machines could make any miracle happen. If a town like New York wanted to host the Olympics in the 1950s, it would have been done. A stadium would have been built and the city would be cheering its construction.

Clearly these days are over. NYC's inability to get a stadium done was one of the final nails in the coffin of machine politics. The current climate does not allow for fiefdoms to flourish. 24/7 media and proliferation of the Internet allow the little guy to get their message out to the masses. Mobilization is easier and getting that message out is a snap. The challenges New York faced in this stadium battle were probably no different than decades past, except the opponents were now able to get their message out.

Now the US is out of the running for 2012 (we wouldn't have gotten it anyway, Paris was clearly the leader in the clubhouse). Mayor Bloomberg feels NYC let down the country and that New York is no longer a place where "things can get done."

Hawk's View: The Mayor's line of thinking is simply misguided. The city voted down the stadium because it was a bad business deal and they in turn shot down the Olympics because having them would probably be a detriment to the city. The Mayor's real reason for being despondent over the stadium defeat should be rooted in the fact that machine politics can no longer get whatever it wants. While that's bad for the Mayor it is good for America. We call that Democracy...