Editorial: Pittsburgh Olympics might sound crazy, but that’s the point

Dreams.

They aren’t something we talk about much ‘round these parts anymore.

We talk about jobs. We talk about money. We talk about love.

But dreams? No, we’re too cool for dreams. We are far too practical and levelheaded. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Yet amidst this dying landscape, this barren wasteland, we have a chance to reclaim our pioneering spirit and once-ample youth.

Some would call the proposal silly. Others might call it a waste of time.

But we call it a bid for Olympic Games. And we call for it to happen now.

There has never been a better time for it to happen. Just last month, Pittsburgh was one of 35 cities to receive a letter from the United States Olympic Commission as a potential host city for the 2024 Summer Games.

Of course, there are hundreds of obstacles sitting between today and Pittsburgh 2024. Primary among them being housing for 16,000 athletes and officials, facilities for tennis and aquatics and about $3 billion.

But we have plenty of time to worry about that. At this stage, these practical considerations aren’t a big concern anyway. Far more important to any Olympic bid is building political will. Especially in a governing culture currently directed toward austerity, any city or region that chooses to go for a bid will need popular support. And any city that could harness political will would immediately take the lead.

Comparatively, the number of hotel rooms, while certainly a serious problem, is a small barrier.

Pitt students should be particularly excited by the opportunity. The much-discussed dream of a separate stadium for Pitt football has a natural ally in a potential Olympic bid. While Pitt might never be able to justify a 100,000-plus spectator stadium, other Olympic stadiums — notably that of Sydney’s 2000 games — have been readjusted to accommodate more modest crowds once the Olympics left them.

But again, we are talking too practical at this stage. What we must do right now is simply harness the broad, grand thinking that once characterized the region and this city.

The city has monumental civic projects in its blood. At the time of its construction, Boulevard of the Allies, which today connects Downtown to Oakland and beyond, was the most expensive road project in the world. When constructed in 1916, Pittsburgh’s Schenley High School was the most expensive school in the country.

During the boom times of the ’50s and ’60s, city leaders initiated some of the largest renewal projects in the country. The city was also at the forefront of urban transportation, piloting the country’s first unmanned transit device, the Skybus, at the 1964 Allegheny County Fair in South Park.

Even more ambitious were some of the projects that weren’t completed, chiefly an early conception of Three Rivers Stadium built on a bridge spanning the Monongahela River and a massive research complex in Junction Hollow between Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University.

The dark years of post-steel decline and some bad side effects of the projects dampened public enthusiasm for these large projects. The city temporarily had to push aside its ambitious goals.

But boom times have come again. As one of only three cities in the country to have fully recovered from the financial crises, Pittsburgh’s aspirational roots are growing back.

So while it might be impractical, impracticality is part of Pittsburgh’s DNA. Why not see if it can be part of our future too?