Thing is, as the article states, there are so many other world class cities in the US that could host the games. LA has already hosted them twice. It just feels like it loses a little bit of it's luster when it's hosted in the same places over and over again. I'd argue even being hosted in the same country repeatedly knocks it down a little bit.

Personally, I'd much rather see it in exotic places where it's never been hosted before - and places that could really stand vast improvements to infrastructure.

People, especially in the US, tend to focus on the cost, and while none of us want another Athens on our hands - where most of the facilities fall into disrepair, there are many more cases where the Olympics provides a chance to implement much needed, sustainable revitalization efforts - Sydney and London come to mind. Even Sochi, for all of it's costs, vastly revitalized that city and improved the QoL for the majority of its inhabitants.

Maybe I'm old school, but to me the Olympics are about sharing a city's/country's culture with the world. More importantly, proving that, though we may all come from different places with different traditions and different backgrounds, we can all come together and share in our love of sports and competition. That we are all part of humanity - we are more the same than we are different.

For all of the international sports events in our globally collected world, the Olympics are still the only one that I will deliberately sit down and watch. I am really looking forward to Rio, an exotic locale rich in culture with an upcoming world class city that I know little about. I hope the trend continues and look forward to a time where we can also see African, Middle Eastern and South Asian hosts.