Megaprojects, Megapolitics
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| Source: Trophy Club, Texas |
Sabeen Rizvi
Flyvbjerg wrote in 2003 about various problems encountered and caused by aptly-named ‘megaprojects’ (think international airports, skyscrapers and suspension bridges). Flyvbjerg’s arguments were provocative and interesting, since he talked about problems that occurred commonly in megaprojects world over and prescribed ways to solve them through best practices and improved oversight. The one that interested me most was on the political end i.e. the trust deficit between stakeholders and skewed power dynamics it plays in to. It brought to mind the concept of ‘environmental injustice’, which is a phrase used for how poorer sections of the population are often the victims of human-made pollution or other environmental effects of various projects.
This could apply especially to developing nations, where corruption is rampant and the needs of those in poverty are generally ignored by politicians in favor of a certain set of elites, which may include the middle class as well in this case. In China, for instance, the Three Gorges Dam, which is still under construction, led to mass relocation of residents upstream. Added to this, some of the funds to compensate these residents disappeared, an unsurprising occurrence in China due to its rampant corruption in most levels of government. This corruption is being tackled by the higher levels of government (notably Xi Jinping, the leader of the ruling party), but is still very much an issue. Therefore, environmental injustice is expectedly a feature of life in China, especially where large projects are concerned.
In this case, however, given the power of the Communist Party of China it is difficult to advocate effectively for the rights of the poor and disenfranchised. For this reason, it is also very hard to build trust between the two stakeholders and near impossible to incentivize those in power to change course on economically beneficial policies for any reason. Flyvbjerg’s recommendations may be even more valid in this case, but difficult to apply. Without considering the lower level stakeholders, the value of the project becomes questionable. Is it really a net positive? Are the benefits worth the losses? And more importantly, what impact will this have on the attitude of the population in the future?
These are questions that are hard to answer in the moment, but are already showing their importance with the environmental effects caused by the dam. Large-scale erosion, earthquakes and landslides, have been tallied among other costs and may add up over time, causing even more environmental problems for the people in the surroundings. All this while the rest of society benefits from higher electrical output and lowered rates of flooding downstream. This can only grow over time as the dam is completed and will probably be irreversible if not addressed. The Chinese government may feel incentivized to change it but it is unlikely to happen any time soon, given how clean energy is more important to the Communist Party’s agenda than environmental preservation.
As China becomes more advanced and the needs of the public become greater, it will be interesting to see how megaprojects unfold. How a suburban or upscale neighborhood’s residents feel about a megaproject adversely affecting their environment will likely have more weight. Along with this, the erosion of trust will be more damaging since these people will be better connected, more valuable to the economy and capable of retaliating in some form. My prediction is that urbanization will decrease over time as cities become overcrowded and people seek more open spaces to raise families. This could bring future megaprojects in conflict with the popular mandate. As we have seen in developing nations, this may not matter as much as in robust democracies, but will certainly be more significant as populations become empowered and emboldened by prosperity and education.
The RXA Reading Deep Series is the course's "deep dives" into literature on professional writing, user experience & architecture, and design, written by the individual scholars of RXA.
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