Nine: Infrastructure delivery planning for functional economic areas and city regions

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Infrastructure is fundamental to all functional economic areas (FEAs) and sub/ city regions within their defined geographies and in relationship with their peripheries, hinterlands and markets. FEAs are of global policy interest (Krugman, 1991, 2011; Gurria, 2014) and the subnational geographic scale of choice for considering growth in national GDP, innovation, specialisation, sustainability and public service provision (Antikainen, 2005; Brezzi et al, 2011; Marsan and Maguire, 2011). FEAs promote policies for ‘filling in’, densification and the creation of compact cities based on public transport systems.

City subregions produce a high proportion of the world’s GDP and also are more successful in attracting talent and investment than other places (Dobbs et al, 2011). While Europe has many cities, there are only three large cities or city areas that feature in world rankings – London, Paris and Rhein-Ruhr – although three cities in Norway in the European Economic Area – Oslo, Trondheim and Jönköping – all have the highest GDP per head (Dobbs et al, 2011). These findings suggest that the role of cities in the US and Europe will decline in their global role and economic contribution as they are outpaced by growing cities in the energising economies of China, India, Pakistan and some African nations.

FEAs have sustainable attributes through historic or sunk investment in infrastructure that now defines locations for businesses and people. The growth of governance institutions that align administrative and economic boundaries is apparent in cities across the world (Katz and Bradley, 2013; Bunker, 2014).

Infrastructure delivery planning is contextualised within wider state policy and institutional settings within FEAs.

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Infrastructure Delivery Planning
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