Hosting the 2024 Olympics will indeed be a prestigious and celebrated opportunity that will put Paris in a global spotlight. Paris has won its Olympics bid in the most adverse time, with mounting austerity, terror threats and police violence. Hence Parisians look at this opportunity as both a boon and a bane simultaneously.
Paris is known for its luxurious real estate and beautiful dreamscapes. On the contrary, the Olympic village is proposed to come up in Siene-Saint-Denis also referred to as department 93, in the Greater Paris region, known for being the poorest department in France.
Even though the main reason for this surprising choice being department 93’s proximity to Paris, one has to understand that the poorly maintained housing projects, lack of smart infrastructure and inadequately connected public transportation requires an accelerated facelift as 2024 Olympics will see a boom in tourism apart from all over the world.
The citizens look at this as an opportunity for the government to rehabilitate department 93 whose development has long been neglected. Approximately half of the entire Olympic budget of 3 billion Euros will be allocated to Seine-Saint-Denis to revitalise it.
World-class sporting facilities, developed infrastructure, new housing complexes, shopping arcades, and the ‘Grand Paris Express’ train connectivity has been given top priority. This is looked as a boon by the locals who are well aware that hadn’t it been for the Olympics, to implement these urban policies would have taken the government decades.
Approximately half of the entire Olympic’s budget of 3 Billion Euros will be allocated to Seine-Saint-Denis to revitalise it with world-class sporting facilities, developed infrastructure, new housing complexes, shopping arcades and the Grand Paris Express train connectivity.
The Government of France has described the main purpose of developing Greater Paris as improving the standard of living of Parisians by building a sustainable city which would lead to solving the territorial inequalities. This will create a positive impact on the real estate by making department 93 a desired place for locals to live in even after the Olympics. There is an expected construction of over 100,000 accommodations. 2024 Olympics will turn out to be a boost for all associated constructions for real estate and infrastructure development.
On the contrary, in the current economic background of increasing debt in France, there has been drastic budget cuts in all the areas such as public services, welfare state and housing projects by the French President Emmanuel Macron.
Socio-economists say that even though Greater Paris will see progressivism, it will not alleviate the budget cuts and bring back all the welfare accessibility and social services. It, therefore, would not solve the problems such as poverty, affordable housing, housing subsidies, unemployment and riots in Greater Paris altogether.
There definitely will be an influx of real estate market in Greater Paris. A better connectivity via rail and road to city centre hubs and increased infrastructure facilities will lure not only the well-settled Parisians to move away from the hustle and bustle of Paris but also encourage first time home buyers and foreign investors.
The current average rate per square meter in spite of growing terrorist attacks and racial violence is 10,300 Euros in Paris, whereas it is approximately only around 3,200 Euros in regions of Greater Paris including the Siene-Saint-Denis area as updated by the Paris Property Group. The price per square meter is, however, likely to increase in the wake of Olympics and therefore many real estate experts consider this a favourable time to invest in Greater Paris.
The current Average rate per Square meter is 10,300 Euros in Paris, whereas it is approximately only around 3200 Euros in Greater Paris including the Siene-Saint-Denis areaas updated by Paris Property Group.
Different perspectives such as an article from the Business Insider, suggests that hosting a large sporting event like the Olympics leads to spending more of the tax payer’s money than making the revenues anticipated for the region’s development. Therefore investing based on the games is not likely to fetch long term economic growth or bring about improved infrastructure if not planned properly.
Many Olympic venues have been abandoned and in ruins post the game. It hasn’t brought any added value economically or infra-structurally to the people. There is very few examples of Olympic venues being repurposed for the locals. Russia repurposed 18 of its sixteen storey buildings built for the athletes for the 1980 Olympics, into permanent living quarters for their state employees. Similarly, Rome has adapted its1960’s Olympics village into residence complexes and community swimming Pools.
Journalist Shahzad Abdul who is a resident of Seine-Saint-Denis elaborates that Olympics 2024 will bring a worthwhile change to real estate and infrastructure development in Greater Paris due to the Grand Paris network’s public transport connectivity which was conceptualised in the 1990s and wouldn’t be completed until 2030 had it not been for the Olympics 2024. He is highly optimistic that better connectivity leads to enhanced infrastructure and real estate.
