Precarious Games: Corporate Accountability, Housing Justice, and the Right to the City in Atlanta from Olympics to World Cup Open Access
Hampton, Ava Jackson (Spring 2026)
Abstract
Amidst an escalating housing crisis, Atlanta is hosting 8 matches for the FIFA World Cup in Summer 2026. Spanning the year prior to the Cup, this research investigates what urban mega-events reveal about spatial injustice. Globally, mega-events like the Olympics and World Cup have been correlated with the criminalization of homelessness, increased housing costs, and displacement of marginalized residents, raising public concern that the 2026 Cup will bring these same effects. I compare historical records of the political, economic, and social tensions revealed by Atlanta’s 1996 Olympic Games to my ethnographic findings regarding the pre-World Cup moment and trace patterns of governance and development that evidence larger themes of Atlanta’s urban function. Using the vocabulary of Atlanta Olympic scholar Charles Rutheiser, I identify pre-World Cup Atlanta as a site of imagineering, a process that combines political messaging, urban development, and history-making in attempts to manufacture a clear brand identity for the city. Like Rutheiser, I argue that imagineering obscures accountability and is facilitated by the partnership between Atlanta's governance and the city’s largest corporate entities, a partnership named the Atlanta Way.
Drawing on Lefebvre’s conceptual right to the city, I investigate how corporate ownership of property in the city leads to residents losing a sense of belonging and excludes them from something deeply human, the ability to participate in the collective, social construction of Atlanta. Because the evictions, gentrification, and increased policing and surveillance associated with corporations predominantly affect Black Atlantans, my research is situated within overarching themes of modern colonialism and spatial justice. Presenting ethnographic research conducted over a year, I document grassroots organizations’ opposition to oppressive and unjust forces that are exacerbated or brought on by the World Cup. The investigation and theoretical consideration of the current moment seeks to create a counter-imagineering history that documents the actions of these resistance groups, assigns accountability to city leaders and corporate powers, and will ultimately provide context for post-World Cup Atlanta.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Introduction 13
Inquiries and Methodology 16
It’s Atlanta! 19
A Brief History of Corporate Landlords 25
Towards Spatial Justice 31
Chapter 1: New Atlanta, Same Old Way: Continuity from the 1996 Olympics to the 2026 World Cup 35
The Olympic Precedent 40
Olympic Echoes in the World Cup 42
Olympics Lessons 44
Chapter 2: The Right to Atlanta: Corporate Landlords’ Effect on Housing Precarity, Alienation, and the Social Production of Space 49
When the System is Built Against You 51
The American Myth of the “Good Life” 58
The Atlanta Oxymoron: Working and Homeless 60
Chapter 3: Your Favorite Coalition: Community Organizing for a Fair and Just World Cup 63
Policy in Motion 66
The First Win of the World Cup 67
Continued Resistance 72
Coda 75
Bibliography 79
Appendix 1: Chronological List of All Interviews 89
Appendix 2: General Interview Protocol 90
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