Discussing Urban Mega Projects – Assessment, Arguments and Decisions

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Mega projects have been an essential form of urban development and planning in western societies since the post-war period. Nevertheless, there is a lack of planning theory on these projects that would acknowledge international mega project research and social science approaches, but also have independent relevance. As a contribution to the formation of such a theory, the proposed research project will empirically review the central findings of mega project research, which is usually related to (transport) infrastructure projects, for their transferability to inner-city planning areas, urban plan-making and its effects as well as local political discourses and decision making. It will also generate insights on the importance of local planning culture and city size. For this purpose, the research project focuses on the often conflicting discourses about the effectiveness and consequences of mega projects between cost-benefit calculations, public opinion and urban design issues. The different arguments, formulated ex ante in the context of complex decision-making and enforcement processes, will be subject to an ex-post evaluation. An empirical mixed-methods approach is designed to create both broad and deep insights through a systematic survey of mega project planning in German cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants between 1990 and 2019, as well as an exemplary focus on nine individual case studies.