Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- 1 The megaprojects paradox
- 2 A calamitous history of cost overrun
- 3 The demand for megaprojects
- 4 Substance and spin in megaproject economics
- 5 Environmental impacts and risks
- 6 Regional and economic growth effects
- 7 Dealing with risk
- 8 Conventional megaproject development
- 9 Lessons of privatisation
- 10 Four instruments of accountability
- 11 Accountable megaproject decision making
- 12 Beyond the megaprojects paradox
- Appendix. Risk and accountability at work: a case study
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - The megaprojects paradox
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- 1 The megaprojects paradox
- 2 A calamitous history of cost overrun
- 3 The demand for megaprojects
- 4 Substance and spin in megaproject economics
- 5 Environmental impacts and risks
- 6 Regional and economic growth effects
- 7 Dealing with risk
- 8 Conventional megaproject development
- 9 Lessons of privatisation
- 10 Four instruments of accountability
- 11 Accountable megaproject decision making
- 12 Beyond the megaprojects paradox
- Appendix. Risk and accountability at work: a case study
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
A new animal
Wherever we go in the world, we are confronted with a new political and physical animal: the multibillion-dollar mega infrastructure project. In Europe we have the Channel tunnel, the Øresund bridge between Denmark and Sweden, the Vasco da Gama bridge in Portugal, the German MAGLEV train between Berlin and Hamburg, the creation of an interconnected high-speed rail network for all of Europe, crossnational motorway systems, the Alp tunnels, the fixed link across the Baltic Sea between Germany and Denmark, plans for airports to become gateways to Europe, enormous investments in new freight container harbours, DM 200 billion worth of transport infrastructure projects related to German unification alone, links across the straits of Gibraltar and Messina, the world's longest road tunnel in Norway, not to speak of new and extended telecommunications networks, systems of cross-border pipelines for transport of oil and gas, and cross-national electrical power networks to meet the growing demand in an emerging European energy market. It seems as if every country, and pair of neighbouring countries, is in the business of promoting this new animal, the megaproject, on the European policy-making scene. And the European Union, with its grand scheme for creating so-called ‘Trans-European Networks’, is an ardent supporter and even initiator of such projects, just as it is the driving force in creating the regulatory, and de-regulatory, regimes that are meant to make the projects viable.
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- Megaprojects and RiskAn Anatomy of Ambition, pp. 1 - 10Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003
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