Sports Mega-Events and Urban Legacies

The chapter seeks to contribute to the understanding of certain urban impacts of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, within a framework of an increasing shift towards neoliberalism and market trends in planning and urban policies at the local and metropolitan levels. The chapter briefly introduces the processes of production of space in the region marked by consistent state intervention in the urban infrastructure establishing the scenario for private capital investment. This is followed by an analysis of the investments and projects related to the 2014 FIFA World Cup, highlighting the three major infrastructure investments. Although important and necessary, they helped to increase property values and promoted forced evictions, thus reinforcing existing inequalities. Investments in the stadium and the adoption of FIFA standards helped to make the Governador Magalhães Pinto stadium (popularly known as Mineirão) inaccessible to the poor, but seem to have produced little impact on its surroundings, as the district of Pampulha already possessed a recognised urbanistic, cultural and environmental importance in relation to the geography of the city. The chapter ends by arguing that the World Cup investments have increased already-existing tendencies and have helped to trigger many reactions and new urban insurgency movements, perhaps the most important legacy of the event.

In the twenty-first century, the city of Rio de Janeiro has gained visibility on the national and international stages because it was chosen to host the 2007 Pan American Games, the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games. This chapter analyses the urban, socio-economic and spatial impacts of the renovation of the Maracanã Stadium and introduces new elements into the debate on large urban projects and their relationship with social structuring and the appropriation of urban space. After an initial presentation of the Rio de Janeiro context and of some basic information on the renovation of the stadium and its surroundings, the main conclusions are presented and developed around political, institutional, symbolic, urban-architectural, socio-environmental, economic, financial and land-related aspects.

The city of São Paulo was chosen to host the 2014 FIFA World Cup opening match. After a series of disagreements between FIFA and the local organisers, the Itaquera neighbourhood in the East Zone was chosen to house the football stadium, putting into practice plans dating back to the 1980s. A typical low-income dormitory district, the region has always suffered from infrastructure problems and lack of jobs. The World Cup brought the promise of attracting investment and jobs to the region. The aim of this chapter is to analyse the results of implementation of projects and the construction of the arena in this region, attempting to understand its main impact by taking into account the urban, economic, real estate and social consequences.