In Pre-Summer Games London, Edginess and Anticipation

With only five months until the 2012 Olympics begin, London is already like a party host anxiously wondering if their guests are going to show up. East London’s Olympic stadium is all but ready, its surrounding park needs little more than a tidy-up, while the scaffolding has just come off the new, monolithic Olympic Village next door. Politicians are drumming up support for what they claim will be London’s greatest summer, while behind the scenes the government is quietly stockpiling anti-anthrax jabs in case of biological attack. But despite impressive forward planning, Britain is still showing a high level of pre-Olympic jitters, worrying about the games’ cost and doubting their impact. This soul-searching is understandable. Amid the public fanfare, these are recession Olympics and London is a more uneasy and arguably more interesting host than any the games has seen in decades.

Beijing, Athens, Sydney, Atlanta, and Barcelona – London’s forerunners – were all towns on the make, using their games to boost low international profiles or celebrate a new maturity and openness as world centers. London, on the other hand, is neither peripheral nor up and coming. It’s Europe’s most important, vibrant city (whatever the Parisians say) and has been so on and off for over a century. But with continuing recession and a summer of rioting knocking it off course, London’s economic and political muscle are if anything slightly on the wane. So what are London’s games for? To promote the city’s charms anew to a captive global audience and thus attract fresh investors and tourists? Are they a welcome excuse to upgrade its ailing infrastructure? Or will they instead deter visitors and drain public coffers for showcase building projects with useful lives scarcely longer than the average moth?