A Few Monday Morning Links

Hope you are all keeping warm.  Get your week off to an Olympic start with some links for your edification:

• Moscow is looking to double its geographical size.  That's the link to The Guardian article about the plan by president Dimitri Medvedev and Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin to drastically expand the borders of the city.  This is the heart of a scheme to ease the chronic gridlock and congestion that has become a staple of Moscow life.  The plan is to move essential government offices and big businesses out to the suburbs over the course of twenty years, as the city swallows up dachas and forest around the city.  Naturally, this doesn't thrill said owners of dachas or people who like trees but, hey, once that Russian eminent domain machine gets rolling...
• For all you philet, filatell...all you people who like stamps, the official Sochi 2014 stamps will be available in six languages.  The first of the four planned stamp sets will be released this fall and will feature well-known natural scenes and cultural sites.
• This link is my favorite and it probably deserves more words than I'm about to give it, but here goes.  There are increasing signs, as reported by The Moscow Times, that St. Petersburg is considering an Olympic bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics.  Now other than fake job security for me, this development is interesting for a few reasons.  Russia, of course, is already on the hook to host the 2013 Universiade (World Student Games), a grand prix F1 event in 2014, the 2016 World Hockey Championships, and  the 2018 World Cup.  Why would Russia want to lay out even more cash to host another event?Well...

Alexander Zhukov, head of Russia’s Olympic Committee, told Around the Rings, the official Olympic news site, that the country believes major events play a vital role in improving the quality of life for all Russians.

 “Our policy is to have more big championships to promote a healthier style of life in Russia and have more children in different kinds of sports,” he said. “That is our aim as an Olympic committee and an Olympic movement.”

Ok, fine. But surely there must be dramatically cheaper ways to promote healthier lifestyles than hosting mega bucks sporting events.  For example, instead of hosting all of the above, the Russian government could probably afford to buy a year's worth of organic groceries for everyone in Russia.  Or just drop vegetables out of helicopters.  Or make vodka more expensive.  Oh, wait.

Or, maybe, Russia's picking up all these mega events shows the government's commitment to improving the nation's infrastructure.  Dmitry Belousov, of the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-term Forecasting, points to the upgrades in rail services in advance of the World Cup, improvements to airports and new roads as evidence that these events are driving infrastructure improvements.  

I don't say this to pick on Russia, because it happens all the time in the US as well, but the logic behind this is colossally bad.  Either infrastructure improvements needed to be made, or they didn't.  It shouldn't require a $30+ billion investment in the Olympics to improve road or rail travel to Sochi.  Similarly, you shouldn't need to host a hockey tournament to improve your country's airport or the World Cup to build more swimming pools.  And, unfortunately, when hosting events such as the Olympics, the infrastructure improvements will remain after the Games have passed but so too will the completely or partially unused facilities that the government will have to pay to maintain.  And I understand, to a point why Russia wants to host all these events; everybody likes to see their name in the paper and sports are really fun.  Not to mention, there are certainly some intangible benefits to hosting these events.  And, sure, there are a few cases kicking around of how a baseball stadium helped spur development in a city.  But city (or in this case, national) planning revolving around hosting big league sporting events, doesn't really make much sense.  Hell, the article even notes that Mr. Belusov "concedes that it is unclear why this long-term planning revolves solely around sport, but adds that this is, at least, better than nothing."

As long as 'better than nothing' is good enough, that's what you'll continue to get.