Planning “Olympic Legacy”: A Comparison between the 2012 London and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics

Abstract

The Olympic legacy has been considered as a “negative” post-Olympic hangover, from which host cities have suffered for a long time. Yet, both the International Olympic Committee and host cites endeavored to achieve “positive” Olympic legacies after the Games in the beginning of 2000s. The 2012 London Olympics, in particular, became a historic benchmark, as it established various legacy strategies to satisfy both Olympic demands and the regenerative ambition of the city. In this paper, the author compares the legacy planning of the 2012 London and the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. In particular, the paper explores both cases from the spatial, temporal, organizational, and media viewpoints, and tries to extract what both cities could achieve and what issues are still unsolved in the field of Olympic legacy planning. Although the spatial strategies of both cities are different, Tokyo's legacy planning has been characterized by ambiguity and a lack of openness, compared to that of London.