Olympics loss forces Chicago to rethink, adjust city plans

By The Associated Press

October 3, 2009

Visitors are reflected in Anish Kapoor’s sculpture called “Cloud Gate” by the city, and “the bean” by everyone else, in Chicago’s Millennium Park on Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2009. President Barack Obama will head to Copenhagen this week to lobby the International Olympic Committee for Chicago to host the 2016 Olympics.

CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago’s dream of an Olympics-sized stimulus was dashed when the 2016 Summer Games were awarded to Rio de Janeiro, and the loss amounts to more than a bruised ego for the nation’s third-largest city.Officials can no longer trumpet the $13.7 billion citywide economic impact local Olympics organizers estimated would come of games-related jobs, construction, tourism and transportation. They’ll also have no excuse for distraction in a city grappling with a mounting deficit and violence that has led to dozens of deaths of city teens each year.- – – -Contact The Daily Reveille’s news staff at [email protected]