ABSTRACT
Major engineering and construction entities, such as those participating in this conference, are often portrayed as being in conflict with environmental sustainability, focused on shorter-term private sector principles, and impatient with the time required to develop a sense of civic enterprise. I am proposing that, contrary to that short-range stereotype, these industries have the strongest stake in developing and sustaining thoughtful, environmentally-based processes for developing civic consensus because they form the basic context essential to supporting enterprises such as the Big Dig. At the heart of this Boston enterprise, you will find a locally-based, thoughtful process for developing and maintaining civic direction as its most fundamental underpinning. If we want to see sustained investment in the re-development of our urban infrastructure systems, we need to begin by supporting broadly-based local planning processes rooted in environmental sustainability principles.
