Smart Commons

Public infrastructure often generates significant private profit via land value uplift, yet mechanisms to redistribute this wealth remain inadequate. The “High Line Effect” investigates this dynamic using public tax registry data to analyze how Manhattan’s High Line—a publicly funded park—transformed nearby property values. Despite costing $187 million to build, it contributed to a $3.4 billion increase in adjacent property values, of which only $103 million was recouped in additional taxes. This project underscores the need for innovative policy frameworks to ensure public investments result in equitable urban development.

Public investment in shared infrastructure results in private profit through land value uplift – a problem that underpins our current model of urban development, fuelling land speculation and creating unequal and unsustainable neighborhoods. We need to redesign our land economy in a way that starts by recognizing public goods create private wealth.

Visualization of the property value uplift around New York’s High Line, based on property tax data. (Center for Spatial Technologies, 2019)

In collaboration with EIT Climate-KIC and Dark Matter Labs (DML), we are developing a platform that brings together smart contracts, property value data, and distributed ledgers to distribute this public value more fairly by creating a mechanism to invest in building more sustainable communities.

For more, read “A Smart Commons: A New Model for Investing in the Commons” on DML’s blog.