Olympic legacy includes the long-term benefits that the Olympic Games create for the host city, its people, and the Olympic Movement before, during and long after the Olympic Games are held. Atlanta, where the 1996 Olympic games were held, did not share this legacy with local residents. Instead, the government gave way to elitist housing policies and practices that exacerbated existing inequalities. Many local residents, including the ones from public housing, were displaced by Olympic-related demolition and gentrification. Throughout our research we are asking the question: What is legacy? Is it displacing thousands of people for Olympic related demolition? Or stanching away the employment of many for an event that only lasts for two weeks? Our after property project aims to bring back the people who once resided in these neighborhoods, and envision giving power to the hands of those compromised communities to redefine legacy. The current urban planning of Summerhill has been an attempt to concretize regimes of power that demonstrate control and dominance. This planning approach supports most dominant discourse, which assumes that space occupied by low-income and racialized people needs to be tamed, civilized, or redeveloped. In our quest for a world after property, we seek to redefine what is considered valuable by prioritizing intangible forms of wealth over financial gain. Through this project, we aim to invent tactics against the marginalizing logics of capitalism. We are interested in creating a constellation of spaces that practice refusal against private and racialized enclosures.
