Deficits, Urban Dystopia Hampers Los Angeles’s Ability to Prepare for 2028 Olympics

Deficits, Urban Dystopia Hampers Los Angeles’s Ability to Prepare for 2028 Olympics

When Los Angeles was named the site of the 2028 Olympics, I am sure many people thought fondly of the 1984 Games the city hosted.

Los Angeles itself was riding a wave of relative prosperity in 1984, with the Olympics amplifying an already growing business and entertainment economy. Through the early 1980s, LA benefitted from growth in aerospace, finance, and real estate, which helped underpin local tax revenues and fund civic expansion.

People wanted to come to Southern California, and the City of Angels was ready for them.

Boosted by last summer’s Olympic Games, tourism in Los Angeles County jumped 9.5% in 1984 compared with the year before, according to a report on the impact of tourism on the county’s economy released Friday by the Greater Los Angeles Visitors and Convention Bureau.

And the visitors–a record 43.2 million of them–brought in the gold: $9 billion was spent on goods and services last year, translating into local tax revenues of $145 million and almost 400,000 tourism-related jobs.

Those games inspired me to move from Michigan to Southern California in 1985.

However, the Los Angeles of 2028 is very different. Businesses have been chased away, and the movie industry is in free fall.

To begin with, the city faces a significant budget deficit in 2026.

In April, Bass had proposed more than 1,600 layoffs as part of an effort to eliminate a nearly $1 billion budget deficit caused by overspending, skyrocketing liability payouts, lower-than-expected tax revenues, and a weakening economy.

The number of layoffs was then later reduced to 600 after budget maneuvering by the City Council.

In order to pay for the Olympics, city officials are relying on “public-private partnerships.” However, if those agreements don’t materialize and expenses exceed estimates, LA could be on the hook for millions.

LA28, the private, non-profit company organizing the 2028 Games, has a $6.9 billion budget funded by corporate sponsorships, licensing agreements, and a significant contribution from the International Olympic Committee. The budget covers expenses like renting athletic arenas, personnel costs, as well as housing athletes.

But if the Olympics budget math doesn’t add up exactly as planned, taxpayers could be left paying part of the bill, and LA and its Olympics committee are aware of the risks of overrunning cost estimates. In 2019, LA28′s budget was increased by $1.36 billion. If LA28′s budget still doesn’t prove to be enough, the City of Los Angeles will be responsible for the next $270 million in funding. After that, California’s state government will be responsible for the next $270 million — with the next $270 million after that again becoming LA’s financial burden.

Next, crime is rampant. The city built the “Ribbon of Light” (aka 6th Street Bridge) and promoted it as an architectural masterpiece, showcasing the city’s place on the world stage ahead of the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics.

The bridge has gone dark after thieves stripped it of its copper.

With its 10 rising arches, illuminated with thousands of LEDs to look like a ribbon of light for miles around, the bridge was hailed as the next L.A. monument, up there with the likes of the Hollywood sign and the “Urban Light” assemblage at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

But three years later, the lofty aspirations for the bridge have gone dark, along with its rising arches, because of copper thieves. Today, the viaduct is less an emblem of urban architectural modernity and more a safety risk for drivers, joggers and pedestrians crossing the Los Angeles River at night.

The 6th Street Viaduct was the city’s most expensive bridge project to date, costing an estimated $588 million, and was meant to set off a wave of other public projects across the city. According to estimates from city officials, the thieves who stripped the bridge’s copper wiring probably netted about $11,000.

I hope you’re sitting down, but the $600 million dollar bridge in Los Angeles called the “Ribbon of Light” that is dark after being stripped clean by copper thieves, leads to a garbage filled homeless encampment. pic.twitter.com/8XEQdeXapa

— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) January 26, 2026

The city’s famous MacArthur Park is nothing more than an open-air drug den filled with the homeless…and a prominent city official apparently like it this way.

Meet Eunisses Hernandez — the progressive, permissive councilwoman raking in far more money than the average Angeleno each year, plus gold-plated benefits — even as MacArthur Park, the historic heart of her district, rots into a fentanyl-soaked nightmare.

The Post spent the last week inside the park, witnessing and reporting on open-air drug use, pipe smoking, hand-to-hand deals and city-funded paraphernalia — needles, crack pipes and food handouts — being distributed in broad daylight. That scene now defines the park.

Hernandez, who makes $240,000 a year, had an opportunity to make nice with her district Thursday at a packed public meeting with the very constituents forced to live with the consequences of her policies … and she was a no-show.

Henandez apparently ordered the search for bodies in the park’s lake halted.

A high-tech search for dead bodies, guns and other criminal evidence dumped in MacArthur Park Lake was halted at the last minute on Monday morning, The California Post has learned.

Park rangers told the search’s organizers that they shut down the planned operation on Monday morning at the last minute after the intervention from LA City Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez.

DSA councilwoman accused of suddenly halting search for bodies in LA’s MacArthur Park lake https://t.co/EogPl18a3A pic.twitter.com/mxwkFFnZeb

— California Post (@californiapost) January 26, 2026

Finally, a year after the 2025 Palisades and Eaton wildfires, rebuilding in Pacific Palisades and Altadena remains strikingly slow, with only a tiny fraction of destroyed homes completed or even permitted, leaving burn scars and empty lots across both communities.

Unless leadership, accountability, and a genuine civic revival emerge in the next two years, the 2028 Olympics will stand not as a celebration of Los Angeles’ resilience but as an elegy for what the city once was. Without a miracle, these Games won’t hold a candle to the timeless flame of 1984.

Personally, I am not hopeful.

After burning through too much time and taxpayer dollars painting over graffiti in Los Angeles, Caltrans is now burning through too much time and taxpayer dollars replacing the graffiti-proof ivy covering up the graffiti that has already been covered in graffiti.

The important… https://t.co/zjWnJFIy1x pic.twitter.com/6LOdInfzoE

— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) January 26, 2026

Image by perplexity.ai

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