The changing tracks of land value capture in constrained policy contexts; A comparison of London’s Crossrail and Grand Paris Express

Land value capture is often vaunted as having significant potential to fund public infrastructure, including mega transport projects like urban metro railway schemes. Yet land value capture is frequently challenging to operationalise and project promotors can be reluctant to use it to finance schemes. This article explores why and how land value capture came to be deployed in financing two major contemporary comparable urban railway developments: Grand Paris Express (France) and Crossrail (London, UK). We adopt an institutional perspective which seeks to understand how the dynamic relationships between different institutional bodies shaped the decision to use land value capture and the design of the resulting mechanisms employed by focusing on the political economy, planning regime and taxation regime of each project. We critically discuss the merits of using land value capture in funding these projects by considering why and how actors came to develop instruments that when not seen in isolation, make a meaningful contribution to the overall funding mechanisms employed.