ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a contextual overview before examining three instances in which the prospect of large-scale mega-event investment opened up prospects of longer-term remediation and rehabilitation of blighted land. These respectively are: Flushing Meadow, the showground for New York’s World’s Fair; Homebush Bay, which housed the Olympic Park for Sydney 2000; and the Lower Lea Valley, which served the same function for London 2012. The chapter deals with commentary as to the wider narratives evoked when considering the deployment of brownfield sites as mega-event spaces. Yet regardless of the imprecision with which the term is habitually used, it can broadly be said that brownfield land is generally shunned due to the costs of conversion. The land, purely brownfield that all brick-making had ceased, was transferred to the city council in 1991, landscaped and transformed into a park containing wetlands, native species and remnant chimneys and kilns of the former brick works conserved as industrial heritage.
