URBAN MEGA PROJECTS: A STUDY OF LOCAL IMPACTS USING COMMUNITY IMPACT EVALUATION METHODOLOGIES

Abstract

A key issue facing urban governments of most cities and regions today is the dialectical tension between globalizing and localizing processes. From an urban planning perspective, a major question would concern the relationship between the globalizing tendencies of many business firms and the prospects for a genuine local economic development. This paper addresses a specific aspect of the "global-local nexus” that has not been well developed in the planning literature: the relationships between global urban development trends and the development within cities themselves. In the bid to stay relevant in the global economic map, urban governments in cities are turning towards urban mega projects to raise their international profiles, but sometimes with less than adequate recognition of the local impacts that these projects could have on the existing political, economic, socio-cultural and environmental circumstances of the city or region itself. Against this background, this study uses the case study of the Singapore integrated resort at Marina Bay, an example of an urban mega project, to examine the use of the Community Impact Evaluation model to highlight and evaluate the possible non-economic effects and other local impacts of such urban mega projects. The study demonstrated the use of the model and highlighted its usefulness in terms of comprehensively and systematically setting forth these effects and impacts. It concluded that the model could be a useful too to aid decision-making, and also serve as a platform for public participation and awareness building of such projects.