Grandi eventi, grandi progetti: una scommessa ad alto rischio

Abstract

- Major events, and the projects associated with them, are a high-risk affair, with the state bearing the costs out of its own coffers and the profits going to private investors. Valencia provides an example of how ‘betting' on grand events and projects is more or less rigged in favour of the building industry which reaps the benefits of high-level, risk-free contracts independent of bottom line profitability. The very same betting system also has its guaranteed losers, namely, the users of social services that are reduced and go downhill, the general public that looks on astonished and amazed at the spectacle as it unfolds, and, finally, towns and town planning, the biggest victims of the changes wrought locally. Zaragoza: from Expo 2008 to the grand urban projects associated with it, Javier Monclús (p. 98) The development of a number of strategic projects is determining a substantial renewal of the urban landscape of Zaragoza. The decision to risk organising an event such as Expo 2008 needs to be understood in the context of its being a pretext for implementing projects that were already on the table as well as those which had been maturing over the previous few years. The plans for the Zaragoza Expo can be interpreted as a strategic urban project of greater importance in terms of both time and space than the one established by the Bureau of International Expositions (Bie).