Contesting Megaprojects

Beschreibung

Megaprojects are not merely transformative, but rather, they are inherently disruptive. They are incompatible with any approach to urban sustainability that prioritizes the well-being of urbanites and the boundaries of the Earth system. The reason for this state of affairs is not cost overruns and poor megaproject management, but the disruptive impacts that megaprojects have on urban areas. This book emphasizes the impacts imperative in megaproject planning: the importance of identifying disruptive impacts as a prerequisite for critically assessing whether megaprojects should be built. Drawing on 18 megaprojects in 16 cities around the world (inter alia, Istanbul, Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, Barcelona, Boston, New York and Shanghai), Contesting Megaprojects illustrates the trajectories and transitions in urban-regional political economies over the past fifty years. Megaprojects cause massive disruptions everywhere, and the book offers a typology of megaproject impacts: socioeconomic, environmental, spatial, political and geopolitical, financial, cultural and systemic. As a response to this disruptive complexity (the emerging complex web of interrelated megaproject impacts), the book develops the concept of complex sustainability, a transdisciplinary approach to urban sustainability, through socioeconomic sustainability and deep sustainability.

Contesting Megaprojects may be the most essential read since Altshuler and Luberoff’s 2003 book detailing the politics behind Boston’s Big Dig project.

Professor John Landis, University of Pennsylvania

In this important book, del Cerro shows how “green capitalism” is primarily symbolic with limited benefits to the larger population that continues to suffer from environmental degradation and widening inequality.

Professor Susan Fainstein, Harvard University

This must-read book has sealed Gerardo del Cerro’s reputation as a leading scholar of megaprojects.

Professor Diane Davis, Harvard University

Contesting Megaprojects is another impressive and thoughtful contribution from one of the most knowledgeable critics of urban megaprojects.

Professor Robert Beauregard, Columbia University

Gerardo del Cerro identifies cities as the “heat islands” that are mostly responsible for our sustainability crisis, and indicts megaprojects as the main culprits. This book is a must read. 

Professor Mauro Guillén, University of Pennsylvania

This book systematically dismantles the convenient fiction that megaprojects are advancing sustainable development as well as economic growth. A must read.

Professor Tim Bunnell, National University of Singapore

Megaprojects are not merely transformative, but rather, they are inherently disruptive. They are incompatible with any approach to urban sustainability that prioritizes the well-being of urbanites and the boundaries of the Earth system. In fact, megaprojects undermine efforts to tackle the global impacts associated with both the destructive creation of capitalism and the new climate regime.

The reason for this state of affairs is not cost overruns and poor megaproject management, but the disruptive impacts that megaprojects have on urban areas. This book emphasizes the impacts imperative in megaproject planning: the importance of identifying disruptive impacts as a prerequisite for critically assessing whether megaprojects should be built.

Drawing on 18 megaprojects in 16 cities around the world (inter alia, Istanbul, Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, Barcelona, Boston, New York and Shanghai), Contesting Megaprojects illustrates urban-regional trajectories over the past fifty years. These trajectories show the coexistence of property development, culture, and iconic architecture, together with a more recent interest in science and technology, innovation, and sustainability as strategies to foster urban competitiveness.

Megaprojects cause massive disruptions everywhere, and the book offers a typology of megaproject impacts: socioeconomic, environmental, spatial, political and geopolitical, financial, cultural and systemic. As a response to this emerging complex web of interrelated megaproject impacts (disruptive complexity), the book develops the concept of complex sustainability, a transdisciplinary approach to urban sustainability, through socioeconomic sustainability and deep sustainability.

The critical outlook of this book contributes to fundamental debates around capitalist development: trickle-down urbanism, spectacularization, high-tech innovation and AI, planetary boundaries, global risks, resilience, the right to the city, geopolitics, democracy, prosperity, and power. Contesting Megaprojects can help urban scholars and analysts, practitioners, policymakers, and residents of cities better understand the complex impacts of urban megaprojects, their magnitude and consequences, and identify pathways of analysis and action toward a more sustainable and just future.

Autor*in

Gerardo del Cerro Santamaría

Themen in »Contesting Megaprojects«

megaprojects destructive creation spectacular architecture AI urban regime green capitalism Earth system boundaries disruptive complexity typology of interrelated impacts socioeconomic sustainability deep sustainability complex sustainability

Stimmen zu »Contesting Megaprojects«

“In a field that is overly focused on the cost and schedule overruns of big civil engineering projects, Gerardo del Cerro Santamaría’s new book, Contesting Megaprojects: Complex Impacts, Urban Disruption and the Quest for Sustainability, provides a much-needed corrective by exploring the societal, environmental, and political-economic implications of very large-scale urban development projects. Del Cerro Santamaria’s use of a grounded theory approach to explore the relationships of megaprojects to their place-based contexts is especially welcome, as is his choice of example projects in cities as different as Istanbul, Shanghai, Sydney, and Toronto.  For scholars interested in how urban megaprojects fit into contemporary city-making practices, Contesting Megaprojects may be the most essential read since Altshuler and Luberoff’s 2003 book detailing the politics behind Boston’s Big Dig project.” (John Landis, Professor Emeritus of City and Regional Planning, Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania, and author of “Megaprojects for Megacities”)

“Contesting Megaprojects is a deeply researched and analytically thoughtful assessment of the disruptions caused by urban megaprojects and what can be done in response and, as such, a much-needed corrective to the global fascination with large construction projects. This book is another impressive and thoughtful contribution from one of the most knowledgeable critics of urban megaprojects.” (Robert Beauregard, Emeritus Professor, Columbia University)

“With the masterful insight, deeply researched material on a range of widely discussed megaprojects in almost every region of the world, and a clear sense of complexity in both theory and practice, Gerardo del Cerro has sealed his reputation as a leading scholar of megaprojects. Beyond demonstrating historical trends in their funding, design, and implementation, this must-read book situates its focus on the disruptive impacts of megaproject development in the context of tensions between economic growth and environmental sustainability. With an eye to the ways that aspirations of economic competitiveness lead local and national authorities to build projects that harm both ecologies and societies, del Cerro sounds a warning bell that rings loud and clear. This book offers crucial first steps by revealing what went wrong in the past and why, thus laying the groundwork for how we might avoid destructive impacts in the future.” (Professor Diane Davis, Harvard University)

“Based on a remarkable amount of research in three continents, Gerardo del Cerro identifies cities as the “heat islands” that are mostly responsible for our sustainability crisis, and indicts megaprojects as the main culprits. The book shows how the diverse and negative impacts of megaprojects are not compatible with any approach to urban sustainability that prioritizes socioeconomic equity and environmental preservation. This book is a must read.” (Mauro Guillén, bestselling author of “The Perennials”, Professor, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania)

“Contesting Megaprojects is an important contribution to the literature that demonstrates how large building projects aimed at increasing a city’s competitiveness produce negative effects. Most important and original is its analysis of projects advertised as contributing to sustainability. Del Cerro shows how “green capitalism” is primarily symbolic with limited benefits to the larger population that continues to suffer from environmental degradation and widening inequality.” (Susan Fainstein, Senior Research Fellow, Harvard Graduate School of Design, and author of “The Just City”)

“Gerardo del Cerro’s Contesting Megaprojects offers a refreshing and radical critique of megaprojects, which have become a controversial key feature of neoliberal urbanism. Megaprojects have routinely been criticized because of cost overruns, their spatial encroachment or temporal uncertainties. Both their planning and implementation have raised more general concerns about the lack of transparency, accountability, or even some kind of democratic deficit. Del Cerro proposes that we should focus primarily on the disruptive impact of megaprojects as essentially unsustainable in nature. They are disruptive because of their sheer scale, and this disruptive complexity tears into the very texture that makes and sustains cities. If we adopt del Cerro's expanded understanding of urban sustainability, we may end up with fewer megaprojects but a far better and more livable urban environment. Contesting Megaprojects is a mandatory reading for urban and development professionals who want to promote a more sustainable and just future, as well as all citizens who are actively committed to participating in urban politics and want to have a say in the large-scale reconfiguration of urban space today.” (Professor Judit Bodnar, Central European University, Vienna)

“Although the global proliferation of urban megaprojects was initially driven by logics of economic competitiveness and city branding, they have increasingly been vaunted as opportunities for green growth. This book systematically dismantles the convenient fiction that megaprojects are advancing sustainable development as well as economic growth. Gerardo del Cerro Santamaria documents how often they lead to neither. His international examination of their multiscalar and long-term impacts reveals that even well intentioned and faithfully implemented megaprojects are prone to gross under appreciation of their ecological disruptiveness. Contesting Megaprojects provides compelling and convincing explanation of why this approach to development is failing in both liberal democratic and authoritarian contexts and lays foundations for alternative ways forward.” (Professor Tim Bunnell, National University of Singapore)

“The question posed by this book is whether the impacts of megaprojects are compatible with the broader objectives of sustainability and socio-economic equity. In this timely study Gerardo del Cerro Santamaria examines the different political, social, and geographical contexts of megaprojects and their broader long-term impacts. It is based on a rigorous empirical study of projects from across the world that vary from the planned Istanbul Kanal to the new World Trade Center in New York to city transport and greening projects and innovation districts. Megaprojects are deeply embedded in the thinking of the global capitalist system, and we are unlikely to be weaned off them soon. This book sounds an important note of caution to all policy planners. Megaprojects can bring benefits but only where carefully planned and well thought through. The problem highlighted in this well argued and readable book is that this is often not the case. Even if these projects were to offer solutions they are invariably socially disruptive and environmentally insensitive, and have unforeseen side effects. In effect the engineering becomes an end in itself, with the rights and voices of the citizen ignored. This book should be essential reading for economists, engineers and policy makers who believe that the simple solutions can be applied to complex problems.” (Professor Peter Bishop, The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London)

“In Contesting Megaprojects, del Cerro Santamaria critically discusses the disruptive and negative impacts of urban megaprojects on sustainability and a climate adaptative built environment. The author argues that the negative impacts of urban megaprojects is an even larger problem than their notorious underperformance. Interestingly, he labels the cascading effects after the construction of megaprojects as disruptive complexity, which affects the life of a large number of citizens. I fully agree with del Cerro Santamaria’s call for transdisciplinarity as the most robust analytical strategy for understanding the impact of urban megaprojects. He asks for complex sustainability, which is a socioeconomic, deep, non-anthropocentric, resilient, and transdisciplinary approach of such projects. This book is a critical and important contribution to the debate on the relation between urban megaprojects and city transformations, and also to the debate on socio-economic value creation through megaprojects.” (Prof.dr.ing. Alfons van Marrewijk, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands)

“Contesting Megaprojects goes beyond mere rhetoric of mega-urbanisation to grapple with the messy complexities of unprecedented human agglomeration and envision what sustainability may look like under hyper-growth and varying scenarios of global dimension and consequence. From socio-politics to economics, technology and digitalization, to culture and environmental sustainability, this book enriches our understanding of megacities through a series of case studies across geographic regions. The book presents evidence and implications of how global economic flows and ambitious utopian development plans disrupt local contexts of everyday life in meaningful ways that portend both risk and opportunity for sustainable development. It examines both the historical context and current patterns of megacity development, and analyses how major challenges and opportunities may catalyse or inhibit the ‘green’ future of cites and indeed humankind. This book is an important resource for anyone interested in how globalisation, neoliberalism and global politics (including environmental politics) are impacting urban transformation at various scales.” (Professor Taibat Lawanson, University of Lagos, Nigeria) 

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