Results
Chasing the Gold Standard: Analyzing the economic development impact of Olympic Candidate Cities. Introduction This work seeks to discuss the employment trends in three major American cities. By comparing Atlanta, the 1996 host city, Detroit, a city that has recently hosted championships in all four professional sports in the last four years as our control. Our analysis develops a working knowledge of the trends of current U.S. cities, and lays the foundation for further inquiry and exploration of the subject of the impacts of hosting the Olympic Games, and its possible benefits to the City of Detroit. This analysis focuses on employment effects between 1997 and 2002. We are measuring economic growth by jobs created. As a result it important to understand the economic trends in the non-host cities, in this case, Detroit, as well as Atlanta, which hosted the 1996 Summer Olympics. The data uses MSA’s as the unit of analysis for measuring regional economic impact. The data was collected from the U.S. Economic Census. We used economic base analysis and regression modeling to predict employment growth based on host city employment characteristics. All of our data came from the 1997 and 2002 United States Economic Census, and was downloaded from the census website using American Factfinder Overview Our research endeavors to quantify the potential impact to a MSA based on hosting the Olympic Games. Our study will compare two US regions: Atlanta, Georgia, host of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games and Detroit, Michigan, a city which would greatly benefit from economic development. This topic is increasingly important as place making economic development strategies persist. Our ultimate research goal is to determine quantitatively if hosting the Olympic Games would be a viable method of developing Detroit’s economy and encouraging revitalization within the city. Research Question • Does hosting the Olympic Games cause economic growth in U.S. host cities? The above Economic Base Graph shows the number of basic jobs in Atlanta and Detroit. Of these occupations, the three largest basic employers are: • The Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services sector comprises establishments performing routine support activities for the day-to-day operations of other organizations. • The Health Care and Social Assistance sector comprises establishments providing health care and social assistance for individuals. • The Accommodation and Food Services sector comprises establishments providing customers with lodging and/or preparing meals, snacks, and beverages for immediate consumption. Our shift share analysis yielded that there was a competitive Effect of 62,532 jobs in post-Olympiad Atlanta, compared to Detroit’s -372,976 in the same time bracket.
Hypotheses and Results
Hosting the Olympic games will create economic growth.
o    Based on our analysis of Atlanta, the contemporary comparison to Detroit, and with careful design consideration of the City of Detroit as it stands today, we believe that a Detroit Olympiad would be of great economic importance to the redevelopment of this once and future great city.  
Hosting the Olympics revitalizes the host city.
o    Our Detroit Olympiad design incorporates as much of the existing and currently proposed infrastructure as possible.   We have sought to nourish and encourage current thriving blocks and small neighborhoods, such as Corktown, and use the available vacant land for new needed construction, to be integrated within existing neighborhoods.  
o    Wherever possible, the historic architectural heritage of Detroit will be maintained through adaptive re-use, specifically in the renovation of the old Michigan Central train station as use as reception facilities as well as the Olympic village.  
o    The presently vacant tiger stadium will once again prove useful as a warm-up and training facility for the athletes, continuing on to serve as a world-class athletic facility for both the people of Detroit as well as the students who call Detroit their academic home-away-from-home.