From Dream to Reality: Scaling the Construction Planning Hurdles of a Megaproject
From Dream to Reality: Scaling the Construction Planning Hurdles of a Megaproject

Author: Orikaye Brown-West

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2008-11-10

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 055700747X

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Discusses how the dream of a megaproject is realized, elucidates the various demands, and explains why it takes years to materialize. It asserts that a megaproject is any project that requires a great deal of management courage, capital, patience, and well-conceived plans. And that managing a megaproject is more than managing a major construction effort; it is also managing a public responsibility with the concomitant management accountability and transparency. It advances the Big Dig as the case study megaproject of record, because none of the other notable megaprojects in the 20th century can boast the paradoxes and the lessons that the Big Dig provides. It affirms that leadership engagement, imagination, and political alignment, facilitate the realization of such dream. It espouses good planning and invokes foresight considerations as a sine qua non for getting the right strategic gaps closed, the misdeeds avoided and the right mechanics applied for a successful project outcome.

Megaprojects and Risk
Megaprojects and Risk

Author: Bent Flyvbjerg

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2003-02-13

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 9780521009461

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Megaprojects and Risk provides the first detailed examination of the phenomenon of megaprojects. It is a fascinating account of how the promoters of multi-billion dollar megaprojects systematically and self-servingly misinform parliaments, the public and the media in order to get projects approved and built. It shows, in unusual depth, how the formula for approval is an unhealthy cocktail of underestimated costs, overestimated revenues, undervalued environmental impacts and overvalued economic development effects. This results in projects that are extremely risky, but where the risk is concealed from MPs, taxpayers and investors. The authors not only explore the problems but also suggest practical solutions drawing on theory, experience and hard, scientific evidence from the several hundred projects in twenty nations and five continents that illustrate the book. Accessibly written, it will be the standard reference for students, scholars, planners, economists, auditors, politicians and interested citizens for many years to come.

Contested Knowledges
Contested Knowledges

Author: Esha Shah

Publisher: MDPI

Published: 2019-05-20

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 3038978108

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Water acquisition, storage, allocation and distribution are intensely contested in our society, whether, for instance, such issues pertain to a conflict between upstream and downstream farmers located on a small stream or to a large dam located on the border of two nations. Water conflicts are mostly studied as disputes around access to water resources or the formulation of water laws and governance rules. However, explicitly or not, water conflicts nearly always also involve disputes among different philosophical views. The contributions to this edited volume have looked at the politics of contested knowledge as manifested in the conceptualisation, design, development, implementation and governance of large dams and mega-hydraulic infrastructure projects in various parts of the world. The special issue has explored the following core questions: Which philosophies and claims on mega-hydraulic projects are encountered, and how are they shaped, validated, negotiated and contested in concrete contexts? Whose knowledge counts and whose knowledge is downplayed in water development conflict situations, and how have different epistemic communities and cultural-political identities shaped practices of design, planning and construction of dams and mega-hydraulic projects? The contributions have also scrutinised how these epistemic communities interactively shape norms, rules, beliefs and values about water problems and solutions, including notions of justice, citizenship and progress that are subsequently to become embedded in material artefacts.

Urban Megaprojects
Urban Megaprojects

Author: Gerardo del Cerro Santamaria

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing

Published: 2013-06-06

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 1781905932

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This book discusses the economic and political conditions that facilitate megaproject implementation and what are the impacts on urbanity and livability of such costly mode of urban development. It includes contributions from sociologists, planners, geographers and architects making it a truly multidisciplinary project.

Megaproject Organization and Performance
Megaproject Organization and Performance

Author: Nuno Gil

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 170

ISBN-13: 9781628253788

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Megaproject Organization and Performance: Myth and Political Realities delves into the complex world of organizing megaprojects and investigates the extent to which the performance of these projects could be traced back to their organizational structure. Through multiple case study research, including the London Olympic Park and Heathrow Airport Terminal 2, the authors show how megaprojects are unique in how they are organized. They explore core-periphery relationships between promotors who, control strategic choices, and suppliers, who are the contracted experts that provide the actual resources to get the project done. The implications of these structural-performance relationships within a robust economy are then compared with railroad and highway development projects in the developing economies of Nigeria, Uganda, and India. This in-depth study brings a complementary perspective to megaproject literature and enables us to reconcile conflicting explanations for the regularity with which megaprojects miss performance targets. With pluralism at the core of the megaproject's organizational structure, the authors argue that megaprojects work best when accountability is shared and everyone has a stake in the final outcome.

The Urbanism of Exception
The Urbanism of Exception

Author: Martin J. Murray

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-03-10

Total Pages: 421

ISBN-13: 1107169240

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This book argues that understanding global urbanism in the twenty-first century requires us to cast our gaze upon vast city-regions without an urban core.

Organizational Project Management
Organizational Project Management

Author: Ralf Müller

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 323

ISBN-13: 1788110978

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This concise text introduces an integrated view of all project management-related activities in an organization, called Organizational Project Management (OPM). Practical cases from several organizations, as well as popular theories such as the Resource-Based Theory and Institutional Theory provide for an insightful yet realistic understanding of OPM as an integrative tool for organizations to improve their efficiency and effectiveness.

In Defense of Housing
In Defense of Housing

Author: Peter Marcuse

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2024-08-27

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1804294942

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In every major city in the world there is a housing crisis. How did this happen and what can we do about it? Everyone needs and deserves housing. But today our homes are being transformed into commodities, making the inequalities of the city ever more acute. Profit has become more important than social need. The poor are forced to pay more for worse housing. Communities are faced with the violence of displacement and gentrification. And the benefits of decent housing are only available for those who can afford it. In Defense of Housing is the definitive statement on this crisis from leading urban planner Peter Marcuse and sociologist David Madden. They look at the causes and consequences of the housing problem and detail the need for progressive alternatives. The housing crisis cannot be solved by minor policy shifts, they argue. Rather, the housing crisis has deep political and economic roots—and therefore requires a radical response.

Investing in Climate, Investing in Growth
Investing in Climate, Investing in Growth

Author: OECD

Publisher: OECD Publishing

Published: 2017-05-23

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 9264273522

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This report provides an assessment of how governments can generate inclusive economic growth in the short term, while making progress towards climate goals to secure sustainable long-term growth. It describes the development pathways required to meet the Paris Agreement objectives.

Large Infrastructure Projects in Germany
Large Infrastructure Projects in Germany

Author: Genia Kostka

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-05-23

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 3319292331

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This book presents an analysis of why some large infrastructure projects are delayed or compromised and offers important insights into the better delivery of future projects. It provides an important reaction to the ambitious €315 billion investment plan devised by the European Commission, wherein Europe's infrastructure is a key investment target. Germany is adopted as a focus, as Europe's largest economy, and a nation that has seen significant delays and tensions in the delivery of key infrastructure projects. The contributions to this volume demonstrate various patterns for infrastructure assets and illustrate how factors such as poor project governance, early planning mistakes, inappropriate risk management and unforeseen technological challenges influence delivery. The in-depth case studies on the Berlin Brandenburg Airport, the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, and offshore wind parks show how project delivery can face massive problems, and illuminating solutions are offered to these problems. Overall, the case of Germany also offers the opportunity to assess various new forms of project delivery, such as public-private partnerships (PPP), and the risks and opportunities of ambitious first-mover 'pioneer' projects. The book will be of great interest for scholars and upper-level students of human geography, business and management, as well as policy makers.