Mega-Projects: The Changing Politics of Urban Public Investment

by Alan A. Altshuler, David E. Luberoff

Since the demise of urban renewal in the early 1970s, the politics of large-scale public investment in urban areas has received little scholarly attention. In Mega-Projects, Alan A. Altshuler and David E. Luberoff examine the forces that gave rise to a great wave of urban mega-projects in the 1950s and 1960s, that broke this wave in the years around 1970, and that have shaped a new generation of such projects in the decades since.While focusing principally on transportation mega-projects such as Boston's Central Artery/Tunnel project (the “Big Dig”), Denver International Airport, and the Los Angeles subway, they consider as well the scores of new stadiums, arenas, and convention centers built (mainly at public expense) in recent years.Mega-Projects includes rich narratives of both national policymaking and local mobilization to bring about highway, airport, rail-transit, and downtown revitalization projects, particularly since the 1970s. The specific projects chronicled are drawn from numerous regions including Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Portland, and Seattle. It also includes broad analyses, seeking to place the authors' findings in relation to leading theories of urban and American politics, and to appraise the most important practical consequences of policy shifts in this arena over the past half-century. In a concluding chapter, the authors examine post-September 11 developments and the potential effects of both new fiscal pressures and security concerns on the future of urban mega-projects.Alan A. Altshuler is the Frank and Ruth Stanton Professor of Urban Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and its Graduate School of Design. He is also director of the Kennedy School's A. Alfred Taubman Center for State and Local Government. David E. Luberoff is associate director of the A. Alfred Taubman Center for State and Local Government and an adjunct lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government

Genres: Urban Planning, Nonfiction, Urban, Urban Studies

368 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2003

Reviews

[Matthew Lutkins]

Read for class. Certainly nothing special…a bit self-proselytizing about their research. I enjoy learning about infrastructure but not this much.

[Jules]

Comprehensive but vaguely boring analysis of American mega projects and why they've become so troublesome to build. There's a good explanation of the various eras of infrastructure development and how shifting discourses have altered how these happen (ie: the shift from Robert Moses type slum clearances to NIMBYism in the 70s driven by activist groups) throughout, focusing on various modes (airports, highways, and rail infrastructure stand out particularly here). While I'm mostly interested in rail (and british rail at that), the American highway system is truly THE infrastructure mega project and that definitely deserved the attention it got here. My favourite bit as a former Denverite was about the development of DIA and the way Peña basically invented TOD from first principles by quasi blackmailing two airlines into supporting its development, but I recognise I am biased...

The other elements of analysis are things you'll have already heard if you're in the transport space at all (ie: mega projects fail because they have become non-routine and therefore more expensive, overlapping and confused political mandates muddy the messaging, the car has become entrenched as the "common sense" option making new infrastructure discursively unpopular from the outset). Still, nice to have an actual empirical backing for these claims and I'd use this as a source if I was hypothetically writing an academic paper about this stuff.

[Gede Suprayoga]

This book is compelling because it explains the precedent and the prospect of megaprojects at the time it was published. The book is meant to understand why the U.S. government and the interested private and community entities were planning and building several noticeable megaprojects during the post-war periods. The authors seek to develop an urban politics theory that set for the rise of megaprojects in the U.S. They also project whether the tendency of megaprojects will last in the next decades based on the framework.

The book contains rich data regarding actors and events that shape the megaproject reality. The megaprojects are focused on urban transportation infrastructures, such as expressways, mass rapid transit, and airports. The writing is based on the data gathered from the megaproject experiences in the U.S. Therefore, those two who are outside of the context should read this book carefully when making conclusions about megaprojects operated in theirs. But the book can be useful to understand that megaprojects are complex, involving different public and private actors who contest their interests. This seems to be a common phenomenon worldwide.

[Carlos]

This is a very interesting analysis of the political process behind the construction of mega-projects in the US from the 1950s. The authors use case studies of airports, highways and transit projects. The main point is to tie in this empirical part with insights from political science to try to understand which type of political environment allowed the surge in construction in the 1950s and 1960s and also the backlash in the 1970s and 1980s. It is also a balance between development interests and local (NIMBY) and environmental concerns. They are able to draw patterns and present nice conclusions, such as the role of public entrepreneurship, the importance of backing from private interests and the need to have a public debate on the projects. The The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro can be read almost as another case study of the patterns explained here. The book was written in 2002. Since then, many other countries, specially in the Middle East and Asia developed projects that eclipse those in the US. It begs the question if these governments followed the lessons presented in the book or if they are still in the early stages of the process (like the US in the 1950s) and implemented these developments without any type of public debate. If that is so, how the trend of the next fifty years will develop in these places?

[Noah]

The authors have an unparalleled ability to tell you everything you need to know, and no more, to understand why a given airport, or tunnel, or rail line got built when and where it did. In one state, you need to know about the local Republican coalition. In another, knowing it had strong business support is enough. This lets them look very broadly and deeply at the same time. Their literature review also did a better job of summarizing theories of urban politics than the full semester course I took on the subject.

This is very much a book from the project point of view, however. So rail gets a bit of poo-pooing because you're never looking at land use issues, just pure mobility. It's not about planning, it's about building. In some sense that's why it's so good -- it's focused and can dispense with a lot of the fluffy stuff -- but it's also why I had to dock it a star.