Transport, economic competitiveness and competition: A city perspective

Abstract

Stimulating the economy is a dominant policy objective, but on what basis are decisions being taken around transport and growth? We describe how transport studies and political geography offer two related, but poorly connected, theoretical approaches purporting to explain the relationship between transport and the economy. Yet in what ways does it matter that two different world views exist? We test these questions through an empirical case study of how city and regional officials use transport in attempting to realise economic objectives. Echoing theoretical approaches based in political geography, we find officials' own reasoning places emphasis on supply side improvements, especially connectivity within regions and on a high quality urban environment hoped to attract high GVA jobs. The decision-support tools are not well aligned to this reasoning, focussing on time savings and the justification of the value for money of proposed schemes relative to other investments in the region and nationally. In contrast to much theoretical work on competitiveness, employment growth is treated as exogenous with less emphasis given to which areas win and lose in the region. It is competition between weaker regional towns and cities that is prominent in officials' discourse. Such a gap between the thinking by officials, and the types of available transport investment decision-support tools, is of international significance. Given the centrality of the economy to where and what we invest in, the paper suggests a need for better knowledge about the efficacy of urban realm and other supply side improvements on job creation and on the influence of local autonomy in decision-making on investment selection and outcomes.