Project Risks: Actions Around Uncertainty in Urban Planning and Infrastructure Development [Hardcover]

Those tasked with the planning and construction of infrastructure and development operations face an increasingly uncertain context in which they must address risks across a number of different fields. These range from the environmental and archaeological to the social, political and financial. As a consequence, the formal and informal practices of stakeholders often incorporate projections of risk and opportunity. Project Risks analyzes this paradigm shift. It reviews the origin and nature of these uncertainties, and the practices implemented by the actors to mitigate or take advantage of them. Paradoxically, these practices generate new risks and power relations that are not compatible with the collaborative planning model. These paradoxes force the rethinking of practices such as project territorialization, risk taking in planning and the responsibility of actors, as well as the societal and political choices that must be made between the realization of projects and the protection of the environment.

Introduction xi

Chapter 1. The Uncertain Environment of Project Planning and Production Process 1

1.1. A risk society? 1

1.2. Globalization and uncertainty 3

1.3. The recent economic and financial crisis context 4

1.3.1. Crisis and mobility practices 4

1.3.2. A wait-and-see demand from households 4

1.3.3. The volatility of business locations 5

1.3.4. The impact of the crisis on the phasing of infrastructure projects 6

1.3.5. Phasing and flexibility of urban projects 7

1.3.6. For more flexibility, the project can precede the plan 7

1.3.7. The use of private financing by publicprivate partnerships 8

1.4. Environmental uncertainty 16

1.5. The need for stakeholders in the decisionlã*