ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns the role played by mega-events in the transformation of their host cities and the development of urban image-construction practices. It examines how mega-events serve as opportunities to impress a new reality upon the existing city, contributing to the crystallization of public policies that serve some to the detriment of others. The chapter discusses the main forces that motivate the hosting of such global-scale events and which make event-led image-construction practices both highly political and artfully deceptive. It also introduces two dominant paradigms commonly used in the realization of the event-city and the construction of its image: the city as spectacle and the city of exception, each illustrated in detail by the distinct experience of Beijing and Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro is a city long concerned with the production and dissemination of a positive urban image.
