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This essay examines the urban legacies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The impact of the Olympics is not only confined to media coverage and city branding effects, but can also be located in the intensified global connectivity reshaping urban spaces in Beijing. Focusing on art space, heritage space, and new state space (i.e. state-sponsored mega-projects), this article traces intertwining global and local connections forged in the arts, preservation and infrastructure development that have integrated Beijing closely into the global city network. Although these processes would have occurred without the games, the 2008 Olympics, as a socio-political ritual with important economic implications, has intensified the magnitude of global connectivity of Beijing. The spatial production of Olympic Beijing also reveals the conflicted urban legacies of the games, as seen in the commercialization of art districts, gentrification of historic neighbourhoods, and solidification of state power by use of new architectural monuments.
Xuefei Ren (Wed,) studied this question.