Urban Megaprojects Research Articles

New York's new edge: contemporary art, the High Line, and urban megaprojects on the far West Side

This is the story of New York's west side no longer stars the Sharks and the Jets. Instead it's a story of urban transformation, cultural shifts, and an expanding contemporary art scene. The Chelsea Gallery District has become New York's most dominant neighborhood for contemporary art, and the streets of the west side are filled with gallery owners, art collectors, and tourists. Developments like the High Line, historical preservation projects like the Gansevoort Market, the Chelsea galleries, and plans for megaprojects like the Hudson Yards Development have redefined what is now being called the Far West Side of Manhattan. David Halle and Elisabeth Tiso offer a deep analysis of the transforming district in New York's New Edge, and the result is a new understanding of how we perceive and interpret culture and the city in New York's gallery district. From individual interviews with gallery owners to the behind-the-scenes politics of preservation initiatives and megaprojects, the book provides an in-depth account of the developments, obstacles, successes, and failures of the area and the factors that have contributed to them.

What Does Neighborhood Theory Mean for Ecourbanism? Introduction to the Themed Issue on ‘Ecourbanism Worldwide’

A growing chorus of planners and designers heralds the neighborhood as the best scale at which to pursue a shift toward low-carbon, “green” living alternatives to the status quo Western lifestyle. Within this, attention to ecourban developments, as a set of planning, design, social and technological arrangements for living better within resource limits, has increased; ecourban neighborhood scale developments, as well as the certification frameworks seeking to imbue them with legitimacy, can be found in different countries worldwide. They hold potential lessons for one another across environmental, design and engineering perspectives while also serving as catalysts and demonstration projects of planning, policy and design for sustainability in their local contexts. They offer new opportunities for learning about living well. This is not to say that the rolling out of ecourban neighborhoods in different contexts around the world does not engender tensions. Models, frameworks and practices of ecourbanism may carry divergent interpretations of sustainability and hence advance, to varying degrees, different priorities. These divergences can be seen, for example, across livability, environmental, social and economic priorities. Similar tensions also occur on the issue of scale, with ecourban developments taking form as urban redevelopment megaprojects, technological innovation demonstration projects, smaller-scale alternative lifestyle projects, and other scales in between. This special issue of Articulo - Journal of Urban Research advances the exploration of current trends in ecourban neighborhood-scale developments, including the tensions that they raise. This introduction to the special issue provides a summary of the literature on ecourbanism and the importance of the ‘neighborhood scale’, a synopsis of the Ecourbanism Worldwide project, and provides a brief introduction to the scholarly work included in this special issue.

Urban Megaprojects in Crisis? Ørestad Copenhagen Revisited

Urban megaprojects that aim to attract and spatially accommodate (inter)national investment money have played a prominent role in urban policies in Europe in the last three decades. The 2007 global economic and real-estate crisis has disturbed the context in which contemporary projects are developed. Have projects been able to respond to these changing settings? We regard the management challenge that these projects face as the ambidextrous challenge of combining exploitative and explorative activities. In-depth fieldwork has been conducted on Ørestad in Copenhagen, a project that originated in the early 1990s. We analyse its pre- and post-crisis responses to this challenge and conclude that its particular new town development model has hampered its performance in this regard.

Storylines, Leadership and Risk, Some Findings from Australian Case Studies of Urban Transport Megaprojects

This article is about how storylines are interwoven with mega transport project success. It examines the animating stories that inspire support for a project, the leadership that carries forward and expresses these stories and in turn becomes defined by them, and one particular impact this has on the management of risk. In developing this article we have used data collected on three Australian mega urban transport projects (MUTPs) for OMEGA Project 2, an international project on MUTPs. Framing the discussion also are some wider questions of political ethics which the expenditure of large amounts of public funds entails. In this article we first discuss our interpretive theoretical framework. We adduce evidence on the three elements (storylines, leadership and risk) before reaching our conclusion that whether or not a project is subsequently judged a ‘success’ depends on the combination of a persuasive storyline, strong leadership and the effective management of risk. Finally, we turn to the wider normative ambitions of the OMEGA project and question whether these can be achieved in an Australian context in which infrastructure planning is so highly politicised.

Book review: Urban Megaprojects: A Worldwide View

Book review: Urban Megaprojects: A Worldwide View

The political economy of an urban megaproject: The Bus Rapid Transit project in Tanzania

The political economy of an urban megaproject: The Bus Rapid Transit project in Tanzania

Territorialized urban mega-projects beyond global convergence: The case of Dongdaemun Design Plaza & Park Project, Seoul

This paper examines the formative process of an urban mega-project (UMP) in Seoul from a multi-scalar perspective. In particular, the paper attempts to reveal the importance of local actors in the UMP’s development by analyzing the dynamic and contested interactions among diverse actors and processes occurring at multiple geographical scales. More specifically, by focusing on the “Dongdaemun Design Plaza and Park Project”, this paper focuses on the following questions. First, who are the important actors that have affected the formative process of the Seoul UMP? Second, how and through what type of processes have these actors affected the UMP’s development? The empirical case study will reveal that the formative processes of the Seoul UMP are the product (what I term the “territorialized urban mega-project”) of highly complicated and dynamic political interactions among diverse actors at multiple scales.

Urban mega-projects for a ‘world-class’ riverfront – The interplay of informality, flexibility and exceptionality along the Yamuna in Delhi, India

While the rejuvenation of India's rivers is a major future challenge for sustainable urban development, large-scale riverfront development projects across India indicate that the riverbed is often seen almost exclusively as real estate. In Delhi, a series of urban mega-projects has been realized on the river's floodplain, which almost simultaneously had been cleared of large slum settlements. By focusing on the environmental dimensions, discourses and legal conflicts, the case study contrasts the slum demolitions and the development of two intertwined mega-projects (the Akshardham Temple complex and the Commonwealth Games Village). Grounded on Ananya Roy’s (re)interpretation of informality as “a mode of urbanization”, the paper argues that urban mega-projects in India should be interpreted as intentionally created zones of exceptions embedded in a calculated urban informality.

The great wager: crisis and mega-project reform in 21st-century Paris

This article explores the dialectics of austerity and growth through contemporary urban mega-projects. In particular it considers the relationship of the Grand Paris regional development initiative to a climate of crisis. The argument put forth is that in times of fiscal stress, the state is incentivised to invest in urban services like transportation with a potential to impel economic growth. The most recent global financial crisis of 2008 brings to light contradictions within this model of austerity-growth, but the imperative of urban mega-projects reform arises out of more permanent shifts in global urbanisation from the 1970s onward.

Madrid

For nearly two decades, Madrid followed a very aggressive strategy to position itself at the top of the global city rankings. This strategy was primarily focused on building large transport infrastructures and promoting urban megaprojects so as to make the city attractive to investors, companies, tourists and citizens alike. At the beginning of the 21st century, the strategy seemed to be working, fuelled by an unprecedented favorable economic context. However, this was just an illusion. In reality, Madrid's development model was plagued with excesses and imbalances, which became quite evident after the eruption of the 2007–2008 economic crisis and left multiple economic, social and physical scars on the city, which will require not only time to heal, but also courageous policy initiatives. This paper describes Madrid's ambitions during the golden years of high economic growth and unparalleled building sprees, exposes the effects of the economic recession on the urban fabric, explores future development opportunities and suggests urban policies for the city's comeback.

Planning, Politics, and Urban Mega-Projects in Developmental Context: Lessons from Mexico City’s Airport Controversy

ABSTRACT:Using a focus on a failed airport project for Mexico City, this article explores the conditions that enable and constrain urban mega-project development in countries facing simultaneous political and economic transition. The article argues that the Mexico City airport project faced three major obstacles, each inspired by citizen efforts to influence planning decisions: (1) divisions within and between the political class and citizens, driven by democratization, decentralization, and globalization; (2) conflicts between local and national authorities over the relevance of citizen participation in project development; and (3) a strong coalition of local, national, and international allies using cultural identity, historical allegiances, and geographic location to build and expand struggle against the airport. In theoretical terms, this article suggests that the historical and institutional legacies of urban and national development in Mexico have created bureaucratic ambiguities and tensions over who is most responsible for major urban mega-project development. It also concludes that planning authorities have not yet developed institutional structures and processes that can enhance government legitimacy and allow the successful implementation of mega-projects in the face of forceful opposition.

Cultural economy, sovereign debt crisis and the importance of local contexts: The case of Athens

This paper presents an overview of the cultural economy of Athens during the last three decades and a preliminary assessment of how it is being affected by the current sovereign debt crisis. Drawing upon the concept of embeddedness and using a combination of statistical and ethnographic data we examine the cultural economy in relation with social stratification and urban policy dynamics. We argue that the cultural economy of Athens acquired a consumption- and import-oriented character. Manufacturing activities shrunk as a result of competitive pressures from both post-Fordist advanced economies and emerging ones. Consumption-oriented activities developed through the meeting of new middle classes’ cultural demand with micro-entrepreneurship and large-scale investments of economic elites in a context of deregulation in urban cultural policy and public investments in urban mega-projects. The restructuring of the cultural economy was a part of a broader political–economic arrangement, established following the affiliation of Greece to the EC/EU, where public spending (based on public borrowing and EU Structural Funds) sustained both middle classes’ income and corporate profits. The 2010–2011 sovereign debt crisis threatens the whole political–economic arrangement of the last few decades whose symbolic aspect was the restructuring and growth of the cultural economy.

The Sustainability of a Financialized Urban Megaproject: The Case of Sihlcity in Zurich

AbstractFinancialization and sustainable urban planning are now two major components of urban production and landscape change in Western cities. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how the intervention of financial actors influences urban sustainability in the building of megaprojects, by developing a conceptual framework for analysis and interpretation. This framework aims first to examine the way in which sustainability has been produced by the different actors involved in a real‐life situation, and then to place these interactions in their institutional, spatial and temporal context. Consequently, sustainability is understood as a social construct which is the object of negotiations that have led to the making of institutional arrangements in order to allow the project to be carried through. This framework has been constructed from the financial geography and urban geography literature on ‘finance, the city and sustainability’ and from a case study. The latter looks at the regeneration of a brownfield site to create a shopping and leisure complex that was the biggest in Switzerland and was purchased by financial actors.RésuméAujourd'hui, la financiarisation et l'urbanisme durable sont deux composantes majeures de la production urbaine et de la transformation du paysage des villes occidentales. L'objectif de l'article est de montrer comment l'intervention d'acteurs financiers influence la durabilité urbaine lors de la construction de mégaprojets à partir de la construction d'un cadre conceptuel, analytique et interprétatif. Ce dernier vise, d'une part, à examiner en situation la manière dont la durabilité a été produite par les différents acteurs impliqués, et d'autre part à situer ces interactions dans leur contexte institutionnel, spatial et temporel. La durabilité est par conséquent entendue comme une construction sociale ayant fait l'objet de négociations qui ont débouché sur un arrangement institutionnel pour que le projet puisse se réaliser. Ce cadre a été construit à partir de travaux en géographie de la finance et en géographie urbaine sur ‘finance, ville et durabilité’ et de l'étude de cas. Cette dernière porte sur la revitalisation d'une friche industrielle en un complexe commercial et de loisirs qui a été le plus grand de Suisse acheté par des acteurs financiers.

Metro Doha

Doha, capital city of the Arab emirate of Qatar, has grown from a small, port city to a bustling capital region with global ambitions. Today almost 85% of Qatar’s total population (1.4 out of 1.7 million inhabitants) live in metropolitan Doha, while before 1971 (pre-independence) its total population was 30 times less. Blessed with generous oil and particularly gas reserves, since the 1970s the country has undertaken urban mega-projects and expensive land reclamations which have increased the built up area in the capital region by 60 times. In this article we review Doha’s past and current urban development, highlighting Qatar’s different urban phases. Also, by comparing Doha to Dubai, we investigate the impacts of Qatar’s “mega-projects agenda” on two important government-led developments: Education City and Mshereib Redevelopment.

Venue Shopping and the Politics of Urban Development

How does the new institutional ecology of city politics structure opportunities for urban growth? We draw on policy agendas theory to explore two central aspects of this question: the process by which urban actors attempt to reach development policy goals by “shopping” for alternative institutional venues and the conditions under which extraurban institutions—such as state and special-purpose governments—provide favorable alternative decision settings. We conduct a comparative case study of two prominent megaprojects—Chicago’s new Comiskey Park (1986-1991) and Seattle’s Safeco Field (1994-1995)—in which policy-making authority shifted from city government to extraurban venues. Our analyses illustrate how the interplay of several factors, including the resources and capacity of relevant coalitions and the issue politics that surround the project, shape venue-shopping opportunities for urban megaprojects. In advancing these arguments, this research underscores the more general significance of venue shopping in urban growth policy processes.

I grandi progetti di rinnovo urbano: genesi e impatti

This paper investigates the rapid spread of urban mega-projects on abandoned industrial sites of European and American cities. These projects are generally developed within the context of public-private partnerships, are frequently mixed-use and cater to the needs of office-based businesses and tourism and leisure services. The introduction of new methods of financing, with the increasingly integration of real-estate sector into the new networks of global capitalism, is an important distinctive element, as also the incorporation of the designs of world-famous architects. This trend has been the result of changes occurred in the economy of advanced capitalist countries as well as of the imposing of the urban redevelopment as a key issue in the political agenda. The paper argues that the property-led urban regeneration and mega-projects don’t necessarily contribute to make the city more affordable, efficient and inclusive.

The City and the Bottom Line: Urban Megaprojects and the Privatization of Planning in Southeast Asia

Prevailing perspectives on the impacts of globalization on urban form in large, globalizing cities in Asia hold that these cities are experiencing an inexorable process of ‘Westernization’ or ‘Americanization’. Yet this focus on convergence distracts us from the task of analyzing urban change and its causes, leading to analytical muddiness and awkward planning and policy implications. The author presents an alternative framework that focuses on actor-centered analysis, and the importance of understanding historical context. This framework is employed in a case study of recent trends in urban development in Metro Manila, based on interviews, government, private sector, and nonprofit sector documents, and newspapers. It is concluded that, in Metro Manila, a defining characteristic of contemporary urban development is the unprecedented privatization of urban and regional planning. Large developers have conceived of urban development plans on a metrowide scale, and begun to implement these with the assistance of government. This phenomenon has its roots in the historical development of social groups in the Philippines and their shifting interests with the globalization of the Philippine economy. The author concludes that the privatization of planning raises distinct issues for urban planning theory and practice.

De la tierra al suelo: la transformación del paisaje y el nuevo turismo residencial

Residential Tourism has had a main role of speeding up the social and environmental processes of change that took place in Spain during the second half of the last century. This article begins with the description of its main characteristics, its effects at a local level and the different phases of its evolution. A special reference will be made with regard to last phase (2002-2007) which has been nomitaded New Residential Tourism (NRT). NRT is characterized by the appearance of urban megaprojects of thousands of households, with several golf courses and all the services needed. Its goal is to build privatized units of residential leisure, which are autonomous and independent from the territory where they are settled. In this paper there is an underlying reflection about the socio-cultural consequences of the transformation of agricultural land into urban land. A land that is definitely denatured and transformed into urban space for tourism consumption.

Grossprojekte in der Stadtentwicklung—Konfliktbereiche und Erfolgsfaktoren

Abstract Inner-city megaprojects have ambitious goals: high-quality urban planning, mixed-use structures, and, of course, profits. at the same time, the implementation of these projects is a challenge for the public sector because of complex market mechanisms, limited financial and personnel resources and highly differentiated interests among the actors involved. This issue of disP discusses inner-city urban renaissance megaprojects and their areas of conflict as well as their success factors against the background of urban governance and urban geography. The papers cover a variety of aspects ranging from real estate economics to policy analysis, power structures and public participation.

Mega-projects: the changing politics of urban public investment

Since the demise of urban renewal in the early 1970s, the politics of large-scale public investment in and around major American cities has received little scholarly attention. In MEGA-PROJECTS, Alan Altshuler and David Luberoff analyze the unprecedented wave of large-scale (mega-) public investments that occurred in American cities during the 1950s and 1960s; the social upheavals they triggered, which derailed large numbers of projects during the late 1960s and early 1970s; and the political impulses that have shaped a new generation of urban mega-projects in the decades since. They also appraise the most important consequences of policy shifts over this half-century and draw out common themes from the rich variety of programmatic and project developments that they chronicle. The authors integrate narratives of national as well as state and local policymaking, and of mobilization by (mainly local) project advocates, with a profound examination of how well leading theories of urban politics explain the observed realities. The specific cases they analyze include a wide mix of transportation and downtown revitalization projects, drawn from numerous regions --most notably Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Portland, and Seattle. While their original research focuses on highway, airport, and rail transit programs and projects, they draw as well on the work of others to analyze the politics of public investment in urban renewal, downtown retailing, convention centers, and professional sports facilities. In comparing their findings with leading theories of urban and American politics, Altshuler and Luberoff arrive at some surprising findings about which perform best and also reveal some important gaps in the literature as a whole. In a concluding chapter, they examine the potential effects of new fiscal pressures, business mobilization to relax environmental constraints, and security concerns in the wake of September 11. And they make clear their own views about how best to achieve a balance between developmental, environmental, and democratic values in public investment decisionmaking. Integrating fifty years of urban development history with leading theories of urban and American politics, MEGA-PROJECTS provides significant new insights into urban and intergovernmental politics.