Back then, it was all about innocence. In 2012, London was a city full of Olympic dreams; it was time for recklessness; there was a certain idea of national unity, and the beer was flowing. No one had heard of “Brexit” yet. Several years would pass before the then mayor of London, a certain clownish-looking Boris Johnson, dragged a crisis-ridden British political system to the bottom. At the time, what focused all his attention was the zip line he got stuck on [lors d’une fête olympique]. It had made people laugh, but people didn’t realize that, ten years later, the ridicule was going to fall on them.
Devout Olympians often dismiss criticism by pointing out that it takes years for the legacy left by the Olympics to bear fruit. But we celebrate the 10the anniversary of those in London in 2012, and we can say that the legacy of this event is nil.
Too little affordable housing
Unfortunately, we know that the Olympic Games tend to promote gentrification by triggering population displacements, but the organizers of the London Olympics had made a commitment that in 2012, it would be different. Sebastian Coe, former British Olympic champion who became chairman of the London Olympics organizing committee, promised that the Games would rejuvenate east London and “would create 30,000 to 40,000 new homes in this part of town”. He had also sworn that a majority of this housing stock would be made up of “’affordable housing’, accessible to professionals in key sectors such as nurses or teachers”.
What about today ? Only 13,000 housing units have been built in the former Olympic zone, of which only 11% are at affordable prices for middle-income workers. At Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, less than 1,200 homes have been built, and of these, less than 200 offer low rents. Nick Sharman, a former member of London
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The Nation (New York)Founded by abolitionists in 1865, resolutely on the left, The Nation is one of America’s premier opinion magazines. It is the oldest weekly in the United States to have been published continuously until today.
Collaborators such as Henry James, Jean-Paul Sartre or Martin Luther King contributed to his fame. Great American intellectuals such as linguist Noam Chomsky, historian Eric Foner, writer Toni Morrison or essayist Rebecca Solnit have published articles there.
At the helm of the title since 1995, Katrina vanden Heuvel announced in 2019 that she was leaving her position as editorial director, now assumed by DD Guttenplan. Katrina vanden Heuvel remains director of the publication, which she bought in 1995 with a group of investors (including the actor Paul Newman) and which she relaunched.
Like most American opinion papers, The Nation remains largely donor-funded.
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