The City Growth Commission has published a report on Connected Cities – how their economic growth depends on transport and digital connections. This includes criticism (p 32) of the usual approach to cost-benefit analysis (CBA), which does not take into account the full range of economic benefits resulting from infrastructure investment in cities, including land value uplift. The Commission argues: ‘The importance of thinking beyond a simple reliance on current CBA models cannot be stressed enough.’ This is a very sensible conclusion, in my view.
