Multidimensional assessment of the feasibility of urban development projects

Abstract

Urbanisation is a process of population concentration and it is definitely one of the global challenges of today and of the coming decades. The uncertainty created by civil unrest and natural disasters such as tsunami and floods, had a great impact on low level and rate of urbanisation in Sri Lanka. As a country emerging from the above challenges into a prosperous future, the rapid rate of urbanisation during the past couple of years has attracted widespread attention. Urbanisation creates enormous impacts on environment, society and the economy at the local, regional and global scales. Therefore, emerging urban development projects should be focused on aforementioned issues and essential to ensure the comfort and convenience of the people. Urban development projects create various problems during both the implementation and usage stage. Hence, project feasibility studies play a vital role in the investment decision making and ultimately the success of urban development projects. Various research studies have been carried out to assess the feasibility of construction projects. However, the key studies have assessed the impact of limited factors such as economics, social and environmental issues on aspects of feasibility of urban development projects without conclusive and substantiated results. Another shortcoming from previous research is the lack of comprehensive and elaborate feasibility assessment indicators to assess success, failure or impact of urban development project to the whole nation. There is therefore, a void in the literature on suitable indicators to assess the feasibility of urban development projects. The aim of this study is therefore to develop a comprehensive feasibility assessment model enabling a multidimensional evaluation of the impact of urban development projects on the entire society. Research methodology was comprised with literature review, preliminary survey and structured interviews with the experts in urban development to identify feasibility perspectives and indicators to assess urban development project feasibility. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) tool was applied for data analysis and prioritise feasibility assessment perspectives and indicators. Results obtained from the survey identified seven (07) multidimensional perspectives, i.e. ‘market’, ‘technical’, ‘financial’, ‘social’, ‘environmental’, ‘physical’ and ‘institutional’ and 36 indicators for the assessment of urban development project feasibility. The multidimensional feasibility assessment model developed in this study can be used to enhance the feasibility of existing and future urban development projects and hence to have sustainable urban development projects for future generation in Sri Lanka.