Geog 481 Blog Post #2: Tokyo 2020 Olympics

From researching intensively on the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, my general conception of the event is that it will likely do more damage to Tokyo (and Japan as a whole) than overall good. I believe this for several reasons.

As we know, Japan has been in a long recession since the burst of its bubble economy in the late 80’s/early 90’s. Obviously, the government feels the pressure to get its nation out of the recession, and the 2020 Olympics are part of the plan to achieve this. However, I’m doubtful that the Olympic Games will actually help to bring long-term stability to Japan’s economy; I think there is a good chance of another inflation and bubble-burst scenario.

As I discussed in my first blog post, Japan is facing a shrinking population, a challenge unfamiliar to most developed nations. So, it seems that if the hosting of the Olympics are done strategically, the event could definitely provide a solution to this problem: there will be a huge influx of people into Japan for the Games, and if Japan were to seriously expand its immigration policies, this event could provide the reason for a huge increase in immigrants and therefore a larger workforce.

However, it does not seem to me that the government or population in general are keen to open its borders, before or after the Games. This is concerning to me because in my opinion, the only way the Olympics will provide lasting positive economic effects, is if the Games are simply used as a tool to represent Japan’s changing global attitude, with real, long-lasting changes being made to the immigration policies. The Olympics after all have always been used as a political tool to try to grow the host city/nation’s economies, and those Olympics most commonly viewed as “successful” were those that represented a positive political statement and underlying real growth, such as Vancouver 2010, in which the changes to the city for the Olympics helped to grow the city for years after the Games.

Hosting the Olympics can facilitate lasting changes to a region. If Japan doesn’t take full advantage of hosting, I think the Games could end up being more of a distraction than a solution to the very serious problem.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *