Reading the Losses: What Failed Projects Teach
I would rather study a loss than a win. A win has too many parents, good site, good timing, a quiet opposition, and you cannot tell which one mattered. A loss is cleaner. When a project dies at the commission, the cause of death is usually legible if you are willing to look: consent was priced at zero, or the water math was ignored, or the permitting path was gamed and the community noticed. This module reads the recurring failure modes, not to assign blame, but because a well-read failure is the cheapest education available. The developers winning now mostly learned from someone else's autopsy.
Knowledge check
Why does Faraday argue that studying failed projects teaches more than studying successful ones?
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Because successes have many plausible causes that are hard to disentangle, while failures usually have a legible cause of death: an underpriced consent risk, ignored water or rate concerns, or a gamed permitting process the community detected. A well-read failure isolates the binding constraint clearly, making it the cheaper and more instructive lesson.