I found this story online and, with the London Olympic Games only days away, it got me thinking: Olympic host-cities typically spend billions of dollars building new sports complexes and making numerous public improvements with the hopes that, once the Games are over, they can be used to entice tourism.  Of course, as is the case with the 2008 Beijing Games, it doesn't always seem to work out that way:

Montreal (1976)
The main facility, Olympic Stadium, was a futuristic-looking building designed to be an ever-lasting symbol of the Games.  What it came to symbolize was the financial disaster that were the Montreal Olympics.  When Montreal won the bid in 1970, organizers estimated the cost to host the Games at around $310 million, and much of that was to be paid for by the provincial government of Quebec.  Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau assured residents that the revenues generated by the sports events would offset the expense of holding them.  But the final cost was closer to $2 billion.  Olympic Stadium alone, which was projected to cost $150 million, had a final price of $800 million.  Although the Montreal Expos did move into Olympic Stadium, they are now long gone, and it took 30 years and a tobacco tax for the province of Quebec to pay off its Olympic debt.

Athens (2004)
The problems began nearly 15 years before the Games were even played when the Greek government incorrectly assumed that Athens would host the centennial 1996 games and began construction on 22 new sports venues.  By the time they hosted the 2004 games, more than $9 billion had been spent and several facilities were just being finished.  Within five years following the Games, 21 of those 22 buildings were abandoned or had been vandalized, mainly because they had been placed in the poorest neighborhoods in an effort to revitalize those areas of the city.  Two large outdoor stadiums were completely closed, one became a homeless camp, and a sports field that was supposed to be converted into an ecological education park became a garbage dump.  With a debt of nearly $500,000 per household, Athens will be paying off the Games for years to come.

Let the 2012 London Games begin!