Last month Fernando Aguerre, President of the International Surfing Association, spoke to me with what you would have to call a rising tide of excitement about the prospect of the 2024 Olympics coming to the place he described as "the soul of surfing".

By which, of course, he meant California, the state which has advanced two cities - San Francisco and Los Angeles - towards selection as the United States contender for the next Games after Tokyo 2020.

That decision is due to be announced by the United States Olympic Committee today. And Aguerre - who lives in San Diego, a little way down the Pacific coast from the two challengers - had better be keeping his fingers crossed for LA.

Because there is a well-orchestrated message of dissent coming out of the place where, as Scott McKenzie's Sixties hit had it, visitors should be sure to wear some flowers in their hair.

Fernando Aguerre, President of the International Surfing Association, is hoping either San Francisco or Los Angeles gets the nomination as US bid city for the 2024 Olympics, as he says California is "he soul of surfing" ©Getty Images

The 12-point argument put together by the self-styled San Francisco No 2024 Olympics group pulls together a series of well-rehearsed points which will come as no surprise to the International Olympic Committee as it seeks, through the catalyst of the Olympic Agenda 2020 discussions, to re-cast its prized possessions into a more fitting shape for a changing world.

"San Francisco is NOT a Playground for the Rich," insists the group, citing the gentrification of the city in recent years and the process whereby the arrival of Google and other tech giants has pushed up rents and forced many working class San Franciscans out of their traditional living areas.

Hosting an Olympics, it is maintained, would only amplify this effect.

Another powerful strand of the argument rests upon the contention that the average cost overrun for producing an Olympic Games has exceeded 200 per cent since the 1976 Montreal Olympics, where the host city was left with huge and unforecast debts.

Working on those lines, the prediction is that the Olympic price tag for a San Francisco Games would climb to $13.5 billion (£9 billion/€11.5 billion).

The symbol of protest against an Olympics where you should be sure to wear some flowers in your hair - the logo of the San Francisco No 2024 Olympics pressure group ©SF NO 2024

The source, cited here is an article written by Dr Will Jennings, senior lecturer in politics at the University of Southampton and a research associate at the Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

In it, Dr Jennings identifies three main reasons for the pattern of Olympics costing way more than the forecasts - a pattern which he points out had a form during the very first of the Modern Olympics, the 1896 Athens Games, the final report for which reflected that the initial estimates had "vastly underrated" the cost of restoring the ancient Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, rising some 57 per cent from 585,000 to 920,000 Drachmas.

The first reason, Jennings maintains, is a bid process which encourages contending cities to produce bid books which Richard Pound, former vice-president of the IOC, once described as being the "most beautiful fiction."
The second is what he calls "Scope creep", in which costs escalate due to changes and escalations in planned projects. Jennings cites as an example the rising cost to the London 2012 Games of changes to the design of the Olympic Stadium roof.

The third reason is an amalgam, involving the failure of Olympic organisers to identify risk, the moral vacuum created by the necessity for host Governments to underwrite the Games, meaning the private sector need only garner the gains without risking itself, and finally the illusion of control established through the detail of final bids.

Richard Pound, the former IOC vice-president, has described Bid Documents by cities seeking the Olympics as containing "the most beautiful fiction" ©Getty Images

The San Francisco protestors insist there are more important priorities to spend billions of dollars on - a comment that must surely send the word "Oslo" buzzing through the heads of IOC members.

They cite the example of successful Olympic resistance offered in 1972, when Colorado voters dissuaded the IOC from holding the Winter Games at their nominated choice of Denver, threatening to reject the use of any public funding for the event.

Claims that an Olympics is a long-term benefit to host cities are refuted using the recent example of the 2013 America's Cup, which left San Francisco $11.5 million (£8 million/€10 million) in the red as predictions of its economic impact fell short by more than 50 per cent.
Other reasons form a kind of jamboree bag of dissent, and include claims that the city is too small and lacks the infrastructure for an Olympics. There are also warnings of "IOC corruption" taking a toll on the city's due process.

In an article published by the San Francisco Magazine, one of the leading members of the SF No 2024 group, the city's former Supervisor, Chris Daly, expands on his dissent to the bid headed by the Mayor, Ed Lee, and Larry Baer, chief executive of the San Francisco Giants baseball franchise.

"If I were to ask San Franciscans what the number-one issue here is, most would say it's affordable housing," Daly told the Magazine. "Not lack of entertainment. Folks who are making under $200,000 (£133,000/€169,000) a year already can't afford to live here."

The 2013 America's Cup, raced in San Francisco Bay, left the city $11.5 million in the red, claim the SF NO 2024 group ©Getty Images

These points of protest will resonate beyond today's decision, whatever it may be. Like the Blues, they will never die...

There are so many reasons not to hold an Olympics, you do wonder how any have managed to be staged.

Bauer's take on it is this: "You're building something that will be around for generations. The economy here is extremely strong. We can afford to dream a little bit."

Daly begs to differ. But on the other side of this vast country, another US candidate is undergoing its own version of Olympic REM.

On the eve of the USOC's selection - with Washington DC as the fourth option - Boston's bidders have released a video featuring a diverse group of Bostonians explaining why they love their city and why it would be a great place for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Among those featured are Tommy Amaker, head coach of Harvard men's basketball team; Cheri Blauwet, a sports doctor at Brigham and Women's Hospital/Spaulding Rehabilitation Network and a seven-time Paralympic medallist; Roger Brown, President of Berklee School of Music; Joi Ito, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab; Steve Moundou-Missi, junior at Harvard College and a forward on Harvard men's basketball team; and Israel Ruiz, executive vice-president and treasurer of MIT.

Ruiz concludes: "Having an Olympics in Boston would offer the opportunity to have a Games that are combining not only the virtue of the Olympic sports movement, but also the passion of the city, which you can feel within an arm's length."

Moundou-Missi maintains: "The Olympics would bring an energy that Boston can carry and take it to another level."

While Brown insists: "If we get our scientists and our artists together and say, 'Let's do this in a way that's better than it's ever been done before', what city on earth would be better at doing that than Boston?"

Very different mood music.

In Boston, it seems - to borrow again from McKenzie's iconic song - "There's a whole generation, With a new explanation, People in motion, people in motion..."

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian.To follow him on Twitter click here.