CITIES Seminar Series: The Power of Context with Professor Harry T. Dimitriou

The Power of Context: Addressing Risk and Uncertainty in Mega Infrastructure Decision-Making; What have changes of globalization, climate change, and COVID taught us?

The Power of Context is a phrase coined by Malcolm Gladwell in his book The Tipping Point. It refers to the idea that the environment in which the message or idea is delivered can have a significant impact on whether enough people adopt and spread it to create an epidemic of thought, narrative, or action. The phrase here is used as a basis for reflecting on ‘business as usual’ (BaU) planning and appraisal practices and the influential contagious global narratives it employs in academia, the international consultancy world, governments, and multi-national development agencies regarding what is considered a ‘successful’ megaproject, and to understand how these judgments and narratives have been molded by past contexts, challenges, values, and premises that no longer remain relevant to those of our times.

Speakers

• Harry T. Dimitriou, OMEGA Centre, Bartlett School of Planning University College London