Well, as the G-20 summit descends upon my current home of Toronto and protests and chaos begin, I wondered if there are any long term effects on a host city for the G-20. Typically, an enormous amount of money is spent on such an event and the current price tag for the G-20 summit and the G-8 summit combined (the 2010 G-8 summit is taking place 3 or so hours north of Toronto) is a whopping $1 billion. One would think that with such an enormous price tag, there would be some kind of long term impacts.
I took a look at the Wikipedia entry for the Pittsburgh 2009 summit. Interestingly, the city was chosen due to it’s economic recovery from it’s depressing post-manufacturing days. And while the Direct Energy Business greened the city’s electrical usage during the two days of the summit, there was no information pertaining to the long term effects on the city.
However, one has to believe that such a massive event must have an effect on the future efficiency and effectiveness of the city’s police department for if it can handle something as chaotic as the protests for the G-20, surely the police force must be better equipped for any possible future protests. So as Toronto becomes a zoo of protesters over the next couple of days, I hope that the economic and social costs of such an event are outweighed by the future benefits.
