Not just any old place: people, places and sustainability

Civil engineering solutions are routinely responsive to the places where those solutions are going to be built and the physical aspects of places are integral to good design. Other characteristics of a place, in particular its social or economic geography, will affect the design, implementation and impact of many civil engineering projects. This paper attempts to summarise, from an early examination of limited literature and by linking to ‘types’ of civil engineering projects, how people who live in a particular location respond to such projects, and what is driving their response. The focus remains on what this means for the engineer rather than how the engineer might participate in or improve upon those processes themselves. The location of a project influences whether the impact of a project will be as intended by the designers, and whether it will bring social benefits to the communities affected. The paper explores the research questions that could be answered to improve sustainability performance, suggesting that engineers might consider the need for participative processes in design and implementation more systematically, and suggests that there is a need to acknowledge cultural attachments to landscapes and place in project design and implementation.