Pluralistic project design

The improved valuation techniques that have expanded the range of benefit-cost analysis assume the likelihood and intensities of impacts from development projects can be predicted. Techniques for prediction address the impacts of the project on the environment and society, but indirect relationships - the impact on society and thereby the environment - are too numerous, subtle, and complex to model. Even if these indirect relationships could be modeled systematically, predictive models must assume factors and relationships are fixed or change in predetermined ways. Projects do not perform as predicted and benefit-cost analyses have limited value because the characteristics of factors and relationships in fact evolve in unpredictable ways over time. In some cases evolution results in further gains, but typically this has not been the case. The use of coevolutionary development criteria would help in the design of projects which would more likely evolve in preferred ways.