Vice Magazine’s ‘Guide to the Olympics,’ a 30-minute documentary (in four parts, starting here: http://www.vice.com/rule-britannia/the-vice-guide-to-the-olympics-part-1 ), offers, among other more sensationalist bits, interviews with residents of Carpenter’s Estate in the Borough of Newham, living on the ‘doorstep’ of the Games. The documentary also features author Iain Sinclair ( http://www.iainsinclair.org.uk/tag/2012-olympics/ ), who argues that the Olympics represent ‘degeneration rather than regeneration’ for communities in East London [see also: http://www.npr.org/2012/07/25/156866851/sinclair-rejects-olympic-excess-in-ghost-milk ].
Laura Falender
H-Urban List Editor
PhD fellow in History
University of Oslo