How infrastructure enables improvement of economic, social, cultural and environment outcomes
I have previously outlined the compelling case to build a community and disaster resilient Wellington and save $100m per annum (here,) how to improve economic outcomes (here) environmental outcomes (here), social outcomes (here) and cultural outcomes (here)
This thought piece summarises how infrastructure enables improvement of economic, environmental, social and cultural outcomes.
The objective is to lift all outcome scores to 80% by 2030. The current trends [1] indicate that capabilities and vulnerabilities are static or declining. The vulnerabilities are a lack of:
· confidence in finding a job. Economic
· helping in the community and feeling safe walking alone. Social
· engaging in cultural activities. Cultural
· confidence land is being used for optimal purpose. Environment
· confidence in Council and Parliament. Governance
· connection with neighbours and preparation for a disaster. Disaster.
If the objective to lift all outcome scores to 80% by 2030 is achieved the benefits[2] will be that people will have more confidence in finding a job, feel safer, be more engaged in their community, have greater trust in Council and Parliament and be more connected with neighbours and prepared for a disaster.
[1]Data for the suburb has been gathered each October since 2019 through a community survey which asks questions of residents based on the wellbeing indicators in the Governments Living Standards Framework here, which have been aligned to the Governments resilience areas here. A score trending less than 60% is a vulnerability and a score trending greater than 60% is a capability. Here is the Wellington suburb survey data showing the trend lines https://newlandrg.weebly.com/result-2019-2024.html
[2] Using the wellbeing indicators in the Governments Living Standards Framework and attaching monetary values to, from The Treasurys; CBAx data set.
The options to improve economic, environmental, social and cultural outcomes are:
· Survive: Improve economy through productivity; mitigate environmental impacts; improve delivery of social services being organised and targeted to people who need them; and improve cultural awareness.
· Revive: Improve economy through knowledge orientated products and services; mitigate environmental impacts plus adaptation with ‘critical’ environment projects; improve delivery of social services being well-organised and easier for people to find and use; and improve cultural knowledge.
· Thrive: Improve economy though leveraging partnership between private and public leaders and the tertiary institutions; mitigate environmental impacts plus adaptation with ‘critical’ and ‘desirable’ environment projects; improve delivery of social services being led by the community, designed around people’s needs, and easy to access; and improve cultural application.
Each of the Survive, Revive and Thrive options show:
· the costs of the required economic, environment, social and cultural infrastructure.
· the costs of the enabling infrastructure, for each of transport (land, air and sea), water (potable, stormwater, wastewater), housing, energy, communications, and community facilities.
· the benefits from an economic, environment, social and cultural perspective.
Decision makers then identify the preferred option and way forward. It is likely the preferred “public value” option is Thrive. To be affordable and achievable this will need to be phased starting with Survive for the first three years, then Revive for 3 years and then Thrive.
This requires government to reprioritise its existing investment programme to initiatives that deliver, in the words of the Minister of Finance, “better bang for buck” and better public value.
Next steps
In my next thought piece, I will outline how transport infrastructure enables improvement in economic, environmental, social and cultural outcomes and how the choices could be phased over 10 years to Survive, then Revive and then Thrive.