EDIT: Obviously this was written prior to the first-round elimination of Chicago.

Maybe I’m a bad Chicagoan (as in someone that actually lives within the boundaries of the city of Chicago and has been living here for going on five years), but I’m really not that excited about the city possibly hosting the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games.  The announcement is supposed to come later today and it’s pretty telling that everyone being interviewed at the rally today hails from suburbs and other places outside of the city.  I have to think that anyone that actually pays attention to the massive waste and unconscionable tax rates in this city would balk at the idea of hosting a multi-billion dollar event, but it seems I am mistaken.

Don’t get me wrong – I really enjoy the Olympics and the idea that the games would be in my own city is pretty exciting, but I can’t help but question the true motivation of the committee members and the biggest financial backers of the bid.  After telling us multiple times that we, as taxpayers, wouldn’t be responsible for financially hosting the games, it quickly became apparent that we were lied to as Mayor Daley agreed to put the city on the hook for the games.  Meanwhile, the biggest financial backers of the games are getting caught in their dreams of destroying impoverished neighborhoods to make way for multi-million dollar stadiums.

But I can picture the games – a little less than seven years from now – hundreds of thousands of spectators heading to Chicago to watch the games.  They’ll take the expressways past the outer neighborhoods, which have been ignored for going on two years by the privatized streets and sanitation corporation (my guess is that Daley will back alley a deal to sell our streets and sanitation work to a private company for a couple hundred bucks and a some shiny beads).  The neighborhood streets will be crumbling, and trash will be overflowing, but the city has asked the private company to focus on sites near the games.

Thousands will be depending on the CTA trains to ferry them to and from the games, but the bloated CTA will be overrun as the spectators grow outraged at the 8.00 fare and the rickety transit system that hasn’t seen the needed safety updates that engineers have been insisting on for years.

After the continued lack of a new contract for the Chicago Police Department, Daley again sneaks in a hundred year contract that brings in a privatized police force to handle the masses (the contract will be awarded in exchange for a 20 pack of Bic pens and $50 in lottery tickets).  Alternative media outlets will run videos of games protesters getting beaten and shoved into unmarked vans.  Local and national mainstream media will avoid these stories, choosing instead to focus on the games.

The privatized fire departments and emergency medical services will be directed to focus all of their efforts on the games, leaving the poorest neighborhoods to handle their fires and emergencies on their own.  Again, the mainstream media ignores the plight of the voiceless residents on the far south and west sides of the city.

Months later, as the multi-million dollar stadiums (that sit on ground that once provided housing for thousands of now displaced residents) sit empty, a few editorials will pop up pointing out the enforced sacrifice of the poorest city residents.  The biggest backers of the Olympics will have made their money off of their investments in real estate and will have moved on.  The completely privatized city services will be investigated and a special prosecutor will release findings of rampant abuse, but nobody will really care and story won’t gain traction.  Daley will happily ignore his city’s citizens (as he has done successfully for going on 30 years), knowing that his reputation was solidified with a successful Olympic games.  The billion-dollar debt will be looming over city residents, as many lack the resources needed to move out of the city and out from under the 30% sales tax and inflated home values.

Honestly, this is a worst-case scenario, but for a city that continues to put its residents on the hook for ridiculously corrupt business deals, I don’t think it’s that far fetched.  I guess we’ll find out though.