From an agreeable policy label to a practical policy framework: inclusive growth in city-regions

Inclusive growth is a label increasingly deployed as the uneven consequences of growth are brought sharply into view. Whilst numerous policy transfer agents are shaping policy diagnoses and suggesting indicator dashboards, conceptualisations of inclusive growth remain markedly varied. Proposing some foundations, this paper argues that capabilities enables a pluralistic and agent-centred view of place-based change to be developed. In order to apply this perspective to a particular policy context, the paper outlines steps to develop an inclusive growth framework - taking the starting perspective of an 'evaluability assessment' - to inform the monitoring and evaluation of a large urban infrastructure project. Questions about the benefits that existing communities may experience from the development come to the fore in this framing.