Urban Economics & Economic Development
Public-Sector Real Estate Advisory
Advising the public sector on real estate and economic development: understanding the government client and the fiscal reality that constrains it, forecasting demand for authorities, appraising economic zones, tourism and giga-projects including the ways they underperform, structuring PPPs and managing the contract across the decades that follow, releasing public land and capturing the value public action creates, writing the public-sector strategy note, and turning it into an implementation plan with the institutional capacity, measurement and integrity safeguards it requires.
The promise
Advise a government client on real estate and economic development — within the fiscal reality that constrains it, through the land and delivery instruments available, to a plan someone can actually implement.
By the end you can
- Read the government client, its stakeholders and the budget rules that decide what it can fund
- Forecast demand for authorities against land use and infrastructure capacity
- Appraise zones, tourism and giga-projects, and test them against the ways such projects underperform
- Structure a PPP, allocate risk, and manage the contract across the decades that follow
- Release public land through the right disposal route and capture the value public action creates
- Write a strategy note that survives publication, and turn it into an implementation plan with measurement and integrity safeguards
Where this course takes you
This course is part of 1 role track, which ends in a professional deliverable.
Curriculum
Advising Government & Authorities
Who the public-sector client is, the mandates and politics that shape decisions, and how public advisory differs from private-side work.
Demand Forecasting for Authorities
Population- and economic-led demand, land-use and infrastructure planning inputs, and forecasting for a new city or district.
Economic Zones, Tourism & Giga-Projects
SEZs, free zones and industrial land, tourism and leisure development, and appraising a giga-project or economic city.
PPPs & Delivery Models
PPP structures and when to use them, risk allocation between public and private, and procurement and value-for-money.
Strategy & the Public-Sector Deliverable
The economic-development and land-use strategy, writing the strategy note for officials, and defending recommendations to decision-makers.
Public Land, Disposal & Value Capture
The state as landowner: knowing what is actually held, choosing a disposal route, what best consideration means when policy objectives compete with price, and the mechanisms that recover for the public the value that public action creates.
Delivery, Governance & Integrity
What happens after the strategy is accepted: institutional capacity and who actually delivers, monitoring and benefits realisation, integrity risk in public land and procurement, and advising honestly when the plan is not working.
Course assessment
Sign in to open lessons and track your progress.
The capstone project
This course ends in a real professional deliverable. Use the brief and the five criteria below to check your own work against the standard a competent professional would be held to.
Your final deliverable
Public-Sector Strategy Capstone
Check your work against five criteria
- Method & rigour: The right framework, applied correctly, with the working shown — not just an answer.
- Data honesty: Every figure is sourced, triangulated, or explicitly flagged “requires local market data”. Nothing is invented.
- Analysis & judgment: Assumptions are explicit, at least one alternative is weighed, and the key risks are quantified.
- Recommendation: A clear, decision-useful conclusion a professional could act on — with the conditions that qualify it.
- Communication: Structured, concise, and client-ready — the argument lands.
When it's ready
Your deliverable is ready when it meets the bar on all five criteria — work a competent professional could put in front of a client or committee.
Revising your work
The capstone is self-directed: you check your own work against the rubric. Where a criterion isn't met yet, revise that part and check it again — as many times as you need.
