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Investigating Infrastructure Strategy in Disruptive Futures
Dissertation   Open access

Investigating Infrastructure Strategy in Disruptive Futures

Richard MacGeorge
University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland
Doctor of Philosophy, University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland
2026
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25907/01050
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R.MacGeorge_Thesis20.30 MBDownloadView
Thesis Open Access CC BY-NC V4.0

Abstract

Communications engineering not elsewhere classified Gapcasting infrastructure planning futures methodology foresight forecasting uncertainty sustainability policy analysis participatory research
Typical infrastructure planning is entrenched in a ‘predict and provide’ model for anticipating infrastructure futures. The approach is increasingly unfit for purpose in an era marked by growing uncertainty and increasingly frequent ecological crises. This thesis argues that infrastructure planning is steeped in methods inherited from an extraction-growth ethos born in the Neolithic period. Human-centric economic outcomes are prioritised, and an unsustainable, colonial-like relationship with nature prevails. The research originates from experiences during the 2010–2011 Canterbury Earthquakes in New Zealand, which exposed the fragility of infrastructure and the depth of the relationship between infrastructure and human wellbeing. The development of a built-environment hierarchy of needs (BHoN) model of thought demonstrated how new ways of considering infrastructure strategy in times of crisis could have a positive and transformational societal impact. Through a mixed-methods research design, this investigation employed an environment scan, a case study of the deployment of the BHoN, and participatory futures workshops with infrastructure professionals and users across nine countries. Innovative methods, such as a comic designed to engage participants and AI-assisted qualitative analysis, helped an exploration of historical patterns, current challenges and alternative futures. Findings showed a significant difference between the perspectives of infrastructure professionals, who are often bound by technical ‘lock-in’ and users, who demonstrated greater openness to change. The research also introduces ‘gapcasting’, a new model of thought responsive to the permacrisis in which conventional infrastructure planning is now situated. The method reimagines the ‘infrastructure gap’ term as not a quantitative deficit of infrastructure stocks but as an analytical space between predictive, exploratory and normative methods for anticipating infrastructure futures. By adopting methodological pluralism in infrastructure strategy design, the resulting spaces can be examined through the ethical principles of harm minimisation, equity, and regeneration. Gapcasting thus provides a methodical planning approach when conditions are radically uncertain. A retrospective examination of the United Kingdom’s 1989 National Road Traffic Forecasts supports this methodology, illustrating how blind spots and responses to them could have been identified. This thesis presents a new theoretical and practical tool for infrastructure planning, contributing to the discourse on futures and promoting sustainable human and natural wellbeing. In doing so, focus is brought to the social construction of infrastructure, starting long before its physical construction, and the importance of infrastructure as a component of civilisational futures.

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