Mega sport events and spatial management: Zoning space across Rio’s 2016 Olympic city

Hosting the Olympic Games demands the efficient and effective sequestration of public space across the city to stage official sports, cultural, and commercial activities. Specifically, this paper examines how fast-tracked urban development processes create exclusive, commercial enclaves to maximize leverageable benefits for external actors. We focus on the case of Rio 2016, drawing on: (i) observations across the city and event zones, including Live Site, Last Mile, and transit spaces, (ii) interviews with key event, policy and visitor economy stakeholders, (iii) documentary analysis of Rio’s plans and promises outlined in official bid documentation, and (iv) supplementary sources documenting Olympic planning effects. Our findings illustrate how the legal power of the Host City Contract and highly-circumscribed Olympic regulations create the conditions for managing urban space that enables the circulation of visitor flows to – and the containment of consumption within – newly privatized, temporarily constructed urban zones that favour global interests.