The Environmental Reimagining of Olympic Sarajevo

Bidding for and hosting the Olympic games provides host cities with an opportunity for massive urban renewal, infrastructural improvements and major environmental remediation. Examination of this development in relation to the 1984 Sarajevo winter Olympics shows that both the bidding process and subsequent selection as the host city helped unleash different urban imaginaries concerning environmental policies in the city. Although the prime motivating factor for hosting the Olympics was to develop and promote tourism in Sarajevo, fulfilment of that goal proved to be closely related to several environmental endeavours, such as reducing pollution and improving infrastructure, including public transportation. Making certain environmental issues more visible and urgent, the Olympic bidding and ensuing preparations made possible the realization of urban imaginaries, both those originating long before the Sarajevo winter Olympics were even conceived and those emerging during the process of preparation for the event. This was particularly the case with respect to city planning ideas relating to the growing recognition of the need for the integration and interconnection of natural and urban environment elements. Along these lines and structured around a trope of Sarajevo as an ‘environmentally sensitive city’ a specific Sarajevo Olympic discourse emerged

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