ABSTRACT
In Chapter 16, David Baccarini demonstrated the central place that risk holds in land development processes, identifying planning systems and procedures as both a source of risks and a site for their management. In this chapter, we take a different perspective on risk, examining how different types of risk can interact to create “wicked problems” (Rittel and Webber 1973, McKinney and Harmon 2007) for planners. In particular, we are concerned with the tensions that arise between the way that public institutions typically handle the environmental risks of development – such as pollution, ecological damage, traffic hazards and so on – and the political risks1 associated with decisionmaking and the affected community demands not only for safe, healthy environments in which to live and work, but also, increasingly, for a voice in planning and development control processes.
