PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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10.2 Summary of Previous Chapter Contents and Conclusions
My study was organized around six major propositions, which were introduced
and contextualized in Chapter 1. They were not research hypotheses that demanded a
strict verification, but rather served as guiding premises for the research. The
propositions framed the investigative process in a delicate way, attempting to not
preclude certain results while at the same time limiting the interpretive freedom in
tackling such broad topics as sustainable spatial development and transport policy.
Meanwhile, the study’s empirical focus on transport infrastructure investment decisionmaking
in the particular context of EU enlargement to some extent limits the formulation
of universal conclusions as far as either sustainability or transport policy is concerned.
The results should nevertheless be seen as indicative of current trends. The key contents
of the three study parts can be summarized as follows:
10.2.1 Theory-Building: What is a “Sustainable” Europe?
Part I was dedicated to some preliminary definitions, several introductory (meta-)
theoretical considerations and the development of the middle-range concept of
“discursive frameworks” for decision-making.
Chapter 2 showed that neither
development nor sustainability are easily definable concepts. Various, internationally
sanctioned, normative definitions of sustainable development and of sustainable transport
exist, but overall, the notion of “sustainable transport development” remains a relatively
ill-defined concept. In particular, there is a continued ambiguity with regard to the
assumed relationship between transport investments and economic development (i.e.
growth). The supposedly harmonious relationship between the “three dimensions of