While the mood in the city has picked up since the start, when many people were suffering a severe case of buyer’s remorse, the looming budget realities make it unlikely that all will be forgiven or forgotten.

“While it’s very hard to see all the costs, I think people are going to pay for it for a long time,” said Lee Fletcher as he walked past several flowering cherry trees near his apartment outside Stanley Park, a large tract of forest tucked up against the city’s downtown. “Some people are going to benefit hugely, not the average guy. The average guy is going to see his taxes increase.”

The average guy, who cannot easily afford Olympics tickets (even attending the medals ceremonies costs $21, plus service charges), has had other reasons to complain. The flaming caldron that Mrs. Lombardi admired was initially hidden behind a chain link fence that evoked a medium-security prison. And until local spirits were dampened by the Canadian hockey team’s loss to the United States, a large section of downtown was overrun nightly by boisterous, hollering celebrants, an astonishing number of whom were drunk.

The task of defending the Olympics has fallen to Vancouver’s mayor, Gregor Robertson, who won office in large part because of a voter revolt over the Olympic Village that led voters to dump the right-of-center party that brought the Games to town.

The real estate development industry, which is unusually powerful in Vancouver, provided the city with an Olympic Village plan that seemed — and ultimately was — too good to be true. A development firm would finance and build the village on a desirable piece of city-owned land. After the Games, the developer would convert the accommodations into luxury condominiums and pay the city for the property. Vancouver would get its village and turn a profit as well.

Image Mayor Gregor Robertson, left, and Andrew Lavigne, a resident who is making a documentary, days before the Games opened. Credit... Kim Stallknecht for The New York Times

But cost overruns, combined with the credit crisis in 2008, destroyed the financing. Once in office, Mr. Robertson had to obtain special permission from the province to borrow $434 million to complete the village. In all, the city is responsible for about $1 billion in development costs, a situation that lowered its credit rating.