The debate around Boston hosting the Olympics has many asking, “What makes a world-class city?”
Boston2024, the private entity that bid Boston to host the 2024 Summer Olympics, would like us to think a world-class city emerges from the benefits incurred by Olympic host cities. However, in a public meeting last week, Smith College Professor Andrew Zimbalist, author of Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the Olympics and the World Cup, debunked this notion:
Over a year ago I worked with a research group that had secured NIH funding to better understand the 30-day readmission rates at minority-serving hospitals across the country. I interviewed Chief Quality Officers, Chief Medical Officers, case mangers, and others in public, private, and teaching hospitals with a high minority patient population.
Whenever I train homeless service providers to provide housing focused outreach, the first question I typically receive is, “Yeah, this is great and all, but what if you don’t have any housing available?”
I continue to be haunted and inspired by a speech given by Chief Wilton Littlechild at the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness conference in Vancouver, BC in November 2014. Chief Littlechild, a Cree Canadian with a humble, but powerful presence, is a lawyer, former member of Parliament, and one of three commissioners appointed to oversee the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) currently being conducted in Canada.
