From the Newswire: "Throughout the…litany of news coverage on the IOC’s decision [to award the 2016 Olympics to Rio de Janeiro rather than Chicago], little attention has been given to what is arguably the majority sentiment in Chicago. When citizen opposition, polls and community organizing is taken into consideration, today’s decision is not appropriately characterized by “deep sadness.” Community leaders and organizers, as well as citizens, registered far different reactions than what was expressed by politicians and prominently echoed by U.S.-based mainstream media outlets."

"J.R. Fleming, an organizer with the Olympics Human Rights Project of Chicago, told CIMC that there were, “many issues that needed to be addressed before the Olympics. Homelessness, our transportation and educational structures are horrible. The demolition of public housing here in Chicago and nationally, there are 300,000 people a month are losing their jobs.”

“We dodged a real bullet today,” Tom Tresser exclaimed from Copenhagen via Skype to CIMC. Tresser is a long-time Chicago activist and an organizer with one of the lead opposition groups to Chicago’s bid, the coalition No Games Chicago. “This was a real wake up call to the mayor and his team who has been pushing this thing for years spending millions of dollars that should have gone to the neediest, not the greediest. This is a time to be giving more to people who are losing their homes, and instead it went to people who are planning a party that fortunately will never happen,” Tresser said.

"The final toll in terms of the city’s costs for promoting its bid for the Olympics was in upwards of $50 million dollars, including $3.1 million doled out to the powerful Hill and Knowlton public relations firm, hired three years ago by the city of Chicago to promote its bid." Read more

Additional Coverage: Victory: Chicago Loses The Olympics | Chicago Reader - 2016 Olympics: more post-mortem | Chicago Reader - Meanwhile, There's A City To Run | Think Progress: Bush Administration’s Tourist Visa Policy May Have Cost America The 2016 Olympics