The notes of the Olympic anthem fade away in Beijing after two weeks of winter prowess. Sport, beyond medals, can also enhance the fabric of cities and breathe life into neglected areas. A look at the successes, big and small, of urban development through sport.
Several cities have succeeded in restoring the image of their center by focusing on large-scale sport. In this discipline, the cities of Baltimore and Barcelona climbed to the top of the podium.
The first, like many cities in North America, paid dearly for the exodus of suburbanites.
“From the moment there was a massive wave towards the suburbs, many elected officials wondered what they were going to do with their central districts, then in the grip of violence and impoverishment, explains Romain Roult, Director of the Department of Leisure, Culture and Tourism Studies at the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières (UQTR). The festive quickly came to the drawing board as a way to regenerate entire neighborhoods. »
Baltimore has bet on sport to bring life back to its city center. The current home of the Orioles, opened in 1992 for its Major League Baseball franchise, has converted the area around Camden Station into a bustling tourist and shopping district. “Baltimore has succeeded in revamping its waterfront through commerce and spectator sports to bring a new flavor and, above all, to give people a taste for visiting the city center”, underlines Professor Roult.
The year 1992 also marked the advent of the Olympic Games (OG) in Barcelona, still held up as a model of the positive spin-offs that the Olympic dream can bring to the city that makes it possible.
“Barcelona has succeeded in making sport a catalyst for urban development,” continues Romain Roult. The elites have used the investments to enhance neighborhoods, especially the seafront.” The Olympic Village has in fact served as a lever to uproot the withered industrial fabric that made the Mediterranean coast of the Catalan capital ugly. The neighborhoods of El Poblenou and La Barceloneta, left on the fringes of the city before the Olympics, are now among the trendiest in Barcelona. A modern economy and a coastline of beaches flourished on the coast, where once stood the greyness of declining heavy industries.
Lower classes dislodged
However, an urban rejuvenation cure through spectator sports requires significant public investment and is often done to the detriment of the lower classes. After 1992, gentrification pushed aside the poor who lived in El Poblenou and La Barceloneta. “The development scheme had nothing to do with the working classes, and the dwellings were beyond the reach of low-income families,” wrote Maria Dolors Garcia-Ramon, a professor at the Autonomous University of Catalonia, in 2000by drawing up a mixed assessment of the urban plan inherited from the Olympic adventure.
Montreal also relies on large-scale sports to enliven its downtown core. Residential towers are multiplying in the Bell Center neighborhood, offering accommodation more within reach of front-row regulars than spectators of the blue section.
“These are more elitist models of regeneration which are subject to much criticism, recalls Professor Roult. Around the Bell Centre, there is real estate development, but it remains luxury condominiums and very high-end properties. »
Transformation by the board
Fortunately, not all projects need to be Olympic in scope to improve their environment. As proof: the skateboard park under the Van Horne overpass, which has transformed a concrete wasteland in Mile End into a meeting place for fans of the discipline.
” This skate park-there is really extraordinary, underlines one of its creators, Yann Fily-Paré. Experts frequent it, amateurs frequent it, families frequent it: it is busy morning, noon and evening. »
Even in winter, enthusiasts come to refine their art on the ramps that the viaduct protects from the snow. Inaugurated in the fall of 2019, the park is already exceeding Mr. Fily-Paré’s expectations. “Its design is the result of extensive public consultation,” he explains. There’s a platform where you can watch people do skateboarding. It’s like watching a show! »
Designed by skateboarders, the park under the Van Horne overpass received a much more enthusiastic welcome than the Skateplaza, created by the city near the Jacques-Cartier bridge. “It’s so badly made,” laments Yann Fily-Paré, who remembers that in 2007, the skateboarding community had inaugurated it with a lot of… tomatoes.
“What we observe, in the case of success stories, is that there is citizen participation, specifies Romain Roult. It’s over, the model where we impose a choice from above that arrives at the bottom. Citizens must be consulted, but also central organizations in the field of sport and recreation. »
Urban health in Victoriaville
Victoriaville has understood this lesson well. Sport, in this city of 48,000 inhabitants, is set up as a factor of identity and is the subject of constant consultation with the school community. Meetings are frequent between the directors of the City, the school service center and the CEGEP. Institutions present their needs: the City listens and finds ways to fund the proposals.
Victoriaville is also giving itself the means to achieve its ambitions, devoting approximately $15 million a year to sports, or 15% of its budget.
“We invest a lot of money in it because we think it is a distinctive element, explains the mayor newly elected in November, Antoine Tardif. Citizens are proud that sport is in our DNA. »
By creating the facilities in partnership with the schools, Victoriaville ensures that it offers all young people quality infrastructure that is distributed equitably throughout the territory.
“I fully intend to use this strength,” underlines Mayor Tardif, himself a regular at arenas, since he has played in the American League. Victoriaville’s sporting identity works really well with young people, and it attracts families. »
Second city center in Rimouski
Rimouski is beginning a major project to modernize its sports facilities in anticipation of the 2023 Quebec Games. According to the mayor, Guy Caron, who himself frequented the now aging grounds of the Guillaume-Leblanc sports complex in his youth, he It is a necessity to attract young people.
“We have no choice but to rejuvenate ourselves, and we need to renew our sports infrastructure to do so,” he explains. We cannot become a town of retirees, otherwise it will lead to other problems from a demographic point of view. »
The appearance of the Desjardins sports complex in 2019 marked the first milestone in a development that promises to transform a district of single-family residences into a “second downtown”. “The complex has proven that there was potential in this sector,” said the mayor. Already, a stone’s throw from the sports center built at a cost of 42 million dollars, the noise of construction sites announces the changes to come in the neighborhood. Where there were no services in the not so distant past, local shops and a cradle of innovation versed in the marine economy are beginning to appear.
“Sport helps to make neighborhoods more human, to bring well-being close to the home,” concludes Professor Romain Roult. A modern way to dust off Juvenal’s ancient maxim: “A healthy mind in a healthy body…in a healthy city”.