Introduction to Infrastructure: An Introduction to Civil and Environmental Engineering

Chapter Sixteen

Social Considerations

Chapter Outline

• Introduction
• Introductory Case Study: Three Gorges Dam
• Welcoming the Challenge
• Social Impact Assessment
• Displacement
• Neighborhood Cohesion
• Health
• Environmental Justice
• Outro

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Explain the relationship between the infrastructure and human health.
2. Describe how infrastructure projects affect neighborhood cohesion.
3. Define environmental justice.
4. Define social impact assessment.
5. Explain the importance of considering the social impacts of infrastructure projects.

Introduction

Building, maintaining, and modifying infrastructure affects society in a number of ways, both positively and negatively. For example, in Chapter 11, Planning Considerations, we discussed the Big Dig project in Boston; one of the societal impacts was that 20,000 people were displaced as a result of the construction of the Central Artery in the 1950s. The social impacts of this displacement were many, as homes, businesses, neighborhoods, livelihoods, and ways of living were completely disrupted. On the other hand, the Central Artery project helped people by decreasing travel time (although only in its first few years of operation). The fact that the detrimental impacts were more numerous than the benefits is typical of what happens when infrastructure is planned and built without properly considering social implications.

Today, the planning and design of large infrastructure projects typically ...