On September 7 the International Olympic Committee delivered its final vote on which city would get to host the 2020 Summer Olympics – and sent Tokyo into paroxysms of joy.
The capital of Japan handily defeated fellow finalist Istanbul by 60 votes to 36. The Summer Olympics will return to eastern Asia just 12 years after they were hosted by Beijing in 2008. Appropriate, some might say, given the two cities are situated in the second- and third-largest world economies, respectively.
Tokyo's success marks a great triumph for Japan, right? Well, perhaps not.
Hosting the Olympics is an expensive business. So pricey, in fact, that it has left most of the cities that did so seriously out of pocket. According to Robert Barney, the head of the International Centre for Olympic Studies, no city has ever made a profit from hosting the Olympic games. Not once, in the 117 years in which the games have been held in the modern era.
Of course, politicians argue that hosting the Olympics is an effective marketing campaign for a city (undoubtedly the most expensive it will ever wage). And visitors to Olympics-hosting cities do tend to increase before, during and after the event itself, although their contribution to the economy is unlikely to outweigh the costs of preparing for the event.
Part of those preparations involve large infrastructure works built to help accommodate the various sports and visitors that will come to watch them, which Games defenders argue can also benefit a city.
True, better transport links are often welcome, but the direct sports facilities are often less so. Many cities don't have a natural interest in, say, canoeing or sports cycling or even gymnastics, meaning that the expensive facilities necessary to host these events end up as costly white elephants, eventually falling into disuse, being sold at a knock-down price to the private sector, or having to be maintained on the public's tab.
Unfortunately this falls squarely into Japan's blind spot.
Politicians in the nation were notorious during the 1970s-1990s for promising to spend large sums of money on pet projects in their constituencies to gain votes. Many of these vanity projects made next to no economic sense and ended up being a waste of resources. One example is Kansai International Airport in Osaka prefecture. Built on a man-made island in Osaka Bay and opening in 1994, it cost over US$15 billion and more billions since to maintain, yet has never run anywhere close to full capacity.
There is the distinct danger of this sort of profligacy emerging once again. Prime minister Shinzo Abe promised to spend US$100 billion on infrastructure by June 2014 as part of his 'Three Arrows' economic revitalisation efforts. Spent wisely, such investment could genuinely help Japan, which may boast some of the most complete infrastructure in the world but is seeing signs of some of its aging pieces of infrastructure in need of repair.
But spending wisely isn't something that Japan's rules-makers have proven themselves very adept at.
Olympics excuse
Renewing a decades-old motorway might be a good use of money but it doesn’t get the political juices flowing. The repair works would clog traffic and take a lot of time. Politicos are far more likely to campaign for some dramatic new construction instead. And in this free-spending environment any project that can advertise itself as linked to the Tokyo Games would burnish its credentials as a recipient of public funding.
Don’t be surprised if the country’s politicians try to outdo each other making calls for the public purse to back various new vanity projects in their constituencies – all essential to a good Olympics, of course, no matter how peripheral they might seem.
The irony to all this is that Tokyo doesn’t need many new facilities to host the Olympics. Part of the pledge of the city’s representative team was that Tokyo was a safe choice that could handle large-scale events due to its robust existing infrastructure.
This is true; Japan most recently demonstrated its organisational mettle when co-hosting the 2002 World Cup with South Korea. And Tokyo well understands the cost of hosting the event; it has set aside US$4.5 billion to build necessary facilities.
Despite the sizeable bill attached to hosting the Summer Olympics, Tokyo could still benefit. It should combine the country’s recent ‘Abenomics’-inspired economic improvement with smart infrastructure renewal and a concerted effort to build more facilities to attract tourists (more efforts to offer help in English and Mandarin wouldn't go amiss). It could genuinely create an enduring cultural legacy – that of a truly international city.
Getting visitors originally travelling to the Olympics alone interested in Japan’s fascinating culture and history would help spawn a new set of spenders prepared to visit the country again, helping its investment enjoy a lasting appeal.
Sadly, it's an unlikely outcome. Instead, Tokyo is likely to host one of the friendliest, best-run Olympics ever, replete with brand new facilities that perform a fantastic job for the month in which they see use. And the city’s politicos will likely breathe a quiet sigh of relief once the masses of gaijin athletes and tourists have finally departed, leaving them to their parochial concerns once more.
And the facilities that so entranced will become crumbling follies, their most enduring legacy an enlarged hole in Japan's public balance sheet.