PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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10.1 Planning, Sustainability and the “Contextual Discourse” Dilemma
Problems Worthy
Of Attack
Prove Their Worth
By Hitting Back
Piet Hein
This study has covered a lot of ground, seeking to simultaneously make a
contribution to such different fields as sustainable development, transport policy,
discourse analysis, planning and policy development, infrastructure decision-making and
European enlargement. Yet my overarching motivation for carrying out the research
remained constant over the course of the entire study: My intention was to uncover the
underlying “rationalities” of transport-related planning and policy-making processes in
Europe. At the end of this quest, I remain – more than ever – convinced that detailed
case study analyses of supra-national policy arrangements and of large-scale, multi-level
infrastructure investment plans and projects continue to be the best way to unearth the
central conflicting interests of planning and policy-making in (post-)modern societies.
“Planning for a Sustainable Europe” remains an elusive concept, and especially
so in the context of an ever eastward expanding European Union. In the transport sector,
rhetorical commitments to transport sustainability only marginally influence the actual
formulation of transport investments programs. Transport investment packages are
instead mainly designed to satisfy varying sets of policy objectives related to economic
development, infrastructure expansion, social and regional cohesion and enlargement.
Environmental objectives are often treated as an afterthought, and to date, environmental
impact assessments largely remain focused at the project level, thus only having a
mitigatory, limiting impact on the planned investments rather than comprehensively