LA, San Francisco, Boston, D.C. USOC finalists to potentially host 2024 Summer Games.

The United States Olympic committee has narrowed the cities it would support to host the 2024 Summer Games bid to Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco or Washington, D.C., if it decides to put in a bid at all.

  The process that began 16 months ago when the USOC sent letters to leaders in 35 cities– including Philadelphia– is now at four finalists after Dallas and San Diego were scratched from the list.

  Los Angeles hosted the 1932 and 1984 Olympics. Boston, San Francisco and Washington would be first-time hosts.

  The next seven months, the USOC will decide whether it even wants to try to host the Olympics. The deadline for deciding is early 2015. The last two U.S. candidates both suffered embarrassing fourth-place finishes: New York for the 2012 Olympics and Chicago for the 2016 Games that went to Rio de Janeiro.

    The United States hasn’t hosted a Summer Games since Atlanta in 1996. The 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City were the last on U.S. soil.

    Is it worth it? Contenders should realize hosting the Games will cost their cities between $6 billion and $9 billion. They would have to be staged without funding from the federal government, as has long been the policy in the United States.