Reconceptualizing Mega Events and urban transformations in the twentieth century

摘要

The growing attention devoted in the last 25 years to Mega Events and to their impact on urban transformation is clearly mirrored by the increasing number of studies devoted to the subject published by scholars in different fields. Mega Events (International and Universal Exhibitions, World's Fairs, Olympic Games,...) have acquired prominence in debates and strategies of post-industrial urban redevelopment.~1 Indeed, since the late 1980s, a multidisciplinary literature on the subject has flourished, strongly influenced by the construction of a rhetoric of 'Landmark events'. This literature has been enriched by a large number of studies addressing the organization of single events at regular intervals2 and recent interest in urban tourism.~3 However, this approach has focused upon specific periods while neglecting, or even obscuring, themes and issues that are both more evident over a longer time span and which are actually central to the understanding of Mega Events and their complex interrelationship with urban development.