Does this sound like a local project we're familiar with? (hint, it has to do with Access & Excess)
David Piehl Central ****** The following story appeared in The Boston Globe Online Headline: Obstacle course Date: 5/18/2003 Escalating costs, complications and delays are pretty much guaranteed in major public works projects these days, according to Alan Altshuler, a professor of urban policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and David Luberoff, a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. They are the authors of ''Megaprojects: The Changing Politics of Urban Public Investment,'' published this month by the Brookings Institution Press. The typical megaproject today is in a complicated setting-an existing urban area-that tends to be chock-full of engineering surprises. Design blueprints are rarely fully completed before construction starts, and changes are made on the fly. Neighborhood disruption must be minimized, an expensive exercise known as ''mitigation.'' And to win essential public support, planners end up promising that other, smaller and sometimes unrelated projects will also get done. (snip) planners turned to what Altshuler and Luberoff call ''do no harm'' public works. Under this new approach, they bought off local resistance with promises of soundproofing, parks, and new rail lines. And every promise busted the budget a bit more. In the case of the Big Dig, planners estimated in the 1990s that mitigation accounted for roughly one-third of the total budget _______________________________________________________ To read the entire story, click on the link below or cut and paste it into a Web browser: http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/138/focus/Obstacle_course+.shtml __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM). http://calendar.yahoo.com TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
