Ha, indeed could vs. would is a great point and you are probably correct that if a country is already willing not to spend the money on citizens directly for no

Ha, indeed could vs. would is a great point and you are probably correct that if a country is already willing not to spend the money on citizens directly for non-vanity projects, it's quite possible that even without the olympics they would do the same with something else but also without the olympics they don't get to use that veneer of shiny international credibility and attention to get internal stakeholder buy-in for the project which feels like it probably makes some difference although how much probably depends on the society in question.