When happens to the tent when the circus leaves town, especially if it’s the greatest show on Earth? The Olympics are a mixed blessing locally because they promise massive infrastructure improvements in only a few years, but they also can indebt a host city, displace citizens and cause environmental damage. And the march of history (e.g., war) can quickly undo any of the good, make something grotesque from it. Jon Pack and Gary Hustwit of the Olympic City Project photograph hosts years after the Games are over to see what the event has wrought. A couple of exchanges from an Ask Me Anything they just did at Reddit.

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“Question:

In your opinion, are the Olympics have a positive or negative long-term effects on the cities hosting it?

Jon Pack and Gary Hustwit:

That a complex question, because it really depends on your point of view. Barcelona’s 1992 Olympics is held up as having a positive effect on the city, since they were able to redevelop the waterfront area and turn the beach into a huge tourist draw. They were also able to do 30 years of planned infrastructure improvements in 5 years, using the Games as the impetus. But there are many citizens who were displaced by the new development there, or complain that the improvements are really just for the sake of tourism, their rents are higher now, etc.

Every city/country has their own reasons for hosting the Olympics, some just want to prove they can do it, that they’re a global city. For some it’s a public relations move (how many of us had heard of Sochi before this year? In the project, we’ve tried not to express an opinion one way or the other, if it’s positive or negative, but try to give a feel for what these cities are like now, a few years or decades after the Games.

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Question:

I’ve been to the Sarajevo site, which is pretty disturbing; tons of the open spaces were used for graves during the war in the 90s, and everything else is practically falling apart.

Which city, in your opinion, has done the best job of reusing and refurbishing former olympic sites?

Jon Pack:

Yes, Sarajevo is an especially sad case. It’s impossible to separate the Games’ legacy from the war. Most of the Olympic structures were destroyed or damaged significantly. But I found the people to be amazingly resilient; almost everyone would tell me a harrowing story of that time and then follow it up with a dark joke. When I was there in the summer, I found most of the sites being used in some way. The bobsleigh track had some picnickers, skaterboarders and tourists around, for instance. The Igman ski jumps sat in ruins, but the base was full of campers playing football. It seems like they may not have the money to rebuild the sites, but they’re making the best of it.

Gary Hustwit:

There are plenty of interesting re-uses of Olympic sites in different cities, I don’t think I could say any one city has done it all well. But we’ve seen some bizarre ones. Lake Placid couldn’t get federal funding to build athlete housing for the ’80 Winter Games, but the government would fund a new prison. So they built a prison, housed the athletes and officials in it, and after the Games were over the prisoners moved in. It’s still a working prison today.”