1st Edition
No Games Chicago How A Small Group of Citizens Derailed the City’s 2016 Olympic Bid
Promoted as a prestigious economic opportunity and often aggressively sought by local leaders, hosting a modern Olympics can in fact be a “city-killer” that racks up billions of dollars in over-budget expenses, degrades the environment, and shreds civil liberties. This book recounts the successful efforts of grassroots organization No Games Chicago to derail Chicago's bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics in an entertaining case study of local activism with international reach. The group’s detailed strategies and tactics provide a much-needed playbook for scholars, journalists, and activists seeking people-powered alternatives to megaprojects and other tourism-centric economic development schemes.
In a time when vital public services are being cut and curtailed, public spaces diminished, and civil liberties threatened by the over-policing of protests, America continues to dedicate billions of public dollars to private development and sports facilities. The activists of No Games Chicago broke new ground in their fight to represent the voice of the people among established local political powers in the decision-making process for Chicago’s Olympic bid. Their story resonates both nationally and globally – over 15 cities around the world have said “No Thank You!” to the Olympics since the success of No Games Chicago.
Relevant to students and chroniclers of deliberative democracy, public policy, media for social change, community organizing, and the economics of sport, No Games Chicago is an enjoyable, practical addition to the literature of citizen governance, urban planning, and economic development.
Contents
Preface
About the Author
Acknowledgments
1. How to Use This Book
2. Introduction
3. Background – The Olympics Are BIG Business
4. Background – Chicago Makes Its Play
5 .What Was at Stake – Chicago Loves "Big Plans"
6. The Players – The International Olympic Committee
7. The Players – For the City
8. The Players – The Opposition
9. The Battle for the Bid Begins – No Games Goes Public
10. What Did the Bid Actually Propose?
11. Insights and an Insider Drives Strategy and Tactics
12.The Research – What Was Learned
13. Tactics and Tools
14. Going Public, Part 2 – April Rally & March - No Games Meets the IOC
15. Going Public, Part 3 – Operation Cheese - No Games Goes to the IOC
16. Star Power and the Bid
17. No Games Grows on the Media
18. Arrogance, Missteps, Scandal, Attempted Bribes
19. Mayor Daley Must Sign the Blank Check – Aldermen Briefed in Secret – No Games Tells All
20. Fifty Wards in Fifty Days and No Games Was There
21. Major Push for a Community Benefits Agreement - To What End?
22. Who Backed and Paid for the Bid?
23.Chicago 2016 Economic Impact Study a Work of Fiction
24. How's This for "Oversight" - Carrie Austin and Ed Burke
25. The Battle for the Bid’s Last Days – A Flurry of City Activity – Whining and Whitewashing
26. Heading to Decision Day – Emailing the IOC 70 Days in a Row
27. The Tide Is Turned – Chicagoans Say "No Games!"
28. Going Public, Part 4 – A Protest at City Hall
29. Going Public, Part 5 – Operation Mermaid – What Happened in Copenhagen – The End of the Battle
30. Immediately After the Decision – The Media Get It Wrong, Again
31. Did No Games Make a Difference?
32. Delusional Post-Mortems and No Mention of No Games
33. The Police Spied on No Games
34. The Pricey Legacy of the Bid
35. Post Battle Research – The Olympics Are Always Way Over Budget
36. The No Games Ripple Effect – No Games Organizer Deported
37. Lessons for the Future – Public Policies and Public Imperatives
38. Closing Thoughts
39. Strategic Playbook
40. Online Extras
41. Select Literature in the Field
Index
Biography
Tom Tresser is a Chicago-based civic educator and public defender. He has spent 50 years doing grassroots democracy, community organizing, and work in the defence of public assets and services. He has started or led 14 nonprofit enterprises in the arts, community development, and civic engagement. In 2008 he co-founded Protect Our Parks, which successfully fought the privatization of Lincoln Park. In 2009 he was a co-leader of the No Games Chicago campaign to stop the 2016 Olympics from coming to Chicago. In 2013 he co-founded the CivicLab, America’s first co-working and maker space for social justice. In 2016 he edited and published Chicago Is Not Broke: Funding the City We Deserve, which outlines $5 billion in progressive and sustainable annual revenue solutions for Chicago. Tom has taught community organizing, civic engagement, public policy, creativity, and nonprofit management classes at six Chicago universities.
"Tom Tresser has completed a remarkable book, meticulously documenting every step of No Games Chicago's successful campaign to stop the Olympic juggernaut from taking over the city. The book will serve as a key guide for future anti-Olympic organizations, providing practical strategies for effective resistance."
Helen Jefferson Lenskyj, Professor Emerita, University of Toronto, author of Inside the Olympic Industry (2000), Olympic Industry Resistance (2008), The Olympic Games (2020)
"Citizens and taxpayers can fight back against these costly, wasteful Olympic bids when they get organized and marshal the facts. No Games Chicago gave us a template -- figuratively and literally -- for our success at doing so in Boston."Chris Dempsey, Co-Founder, No Boston Olympics
"Tom Tresser, public citizen to his core, has gone to extraordinary lengths to document his role in leading a coalition of activists to oppose Chicago’s Olympic Games bid. Tirelessly, he has crafted a riveting story of the uphill battle to bring daylight and transparency to public policy, asking vital questions about an enormous event with dubious benefits for Chicagoans. The narrative is part David vs Goliath, part Saul Alinksy, and part Tresser’s own dog-with-a-bone persistence. Placing the events in context and with detail, Tresser reasserts throughout a ‘public interest’ over private and public-private interests, a central political battle in our neoliberal age."D. Bradford Hunt, Professor and Chair, Department of History, Loyola University Chicago, co-author of Planning Chicago
is the gripping story of the only organized group to fight the idiotic idea of a Chicago Olympic bid. It is the essential record of this important episode in Chicago history. That effort also seeded more than one reform effort in the city. Essential history well told."
"No Games ChicagoEd Bachrach, co-author of The New Chicago Way: Lessons from Other Big Cities
"What is dissent? The types of answers to such a question are debatable and can range from the highly academic to imaginative abstractions. But what is neither debatable, academic or abstract are the irreparable harms to the lives and spaces of the most vulnerable communities and neighborhoods in Chicago that were diverted (or at least delayed for the next fight) by the efforts of those engaged in No Games Chicago that are on full display within this book. So from just reading a few pages, the question that we should ask ourselves is not ‘what is dissent?’ but what can come from it?
Prof. Rasul Mowatt, Department Head and Professor, Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism Management, North Carolina State University
"In sports, grassroots activists are often up against powerful sports associations and their political allies. These struggles determine the future of cities, communities, and sports itself. The good news is: sometimes, the grassroots win. No Games Chicago tells one of these stories." -
Gabriel Kuhn, Playing as if the World Mattered: An Illustrated History of Activism in Sports
