Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

In civil engineering education we are taught to use Cost Benefit Analyses (CBA) to help us spend the public's money wisely by making sure that a project's public benefit is greater than the project cost. However, there may be unintended consequences when applying CBA to public projects.  The end result can be that we locate new roadways in lower income communities in which the cost of land acquisition is less and build flood control projects to benefit higher value properties/communities which results in greater benefits. Federal grant programs have recently evolved to include other factors to consider. Have you ever seen project a CBA that results in further devasting a disadvantaged/overburden community? Are you aware of updated CBA analysis techniques being taught in civil engineering programs that addresses this concern? What should ASCE do about this issue?

Hi Karen! This is an interesting topic to discuss, especially regarding the Justice focus in JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion). The updated CBA analysis techniques I've seen are taking into account the Social Vulnerability Index allowing for projects with a Social Vulnerability Index score to score higher in terms of a project ranking. However, the only CBA I've seen that prevents further devastating a disadvantaged/overburdened community is a requirement that projects identified cannot cause any adverse impact and must only be positive to [all] communities. I think it would be an interesting discussion to address land acquisition costs (or other factors) from a lower-income community which is something that would factor into a CBA but would possibly make the project more favorable in a sense with not thinking of the impacts to the community. 

In civil engineering education we are taught to use Cost Benefit Analyses (CBA) to help us spend the public's money wisely by making sure that a project's public benefit is greater than the project cost. However, there may be unintended consequences when applying CBA to public projects.  The end result can be that we locate new roadways in lower income communities in which the cost of land acquisition is less and build flood control projects to benefit higher value properties/communities which results in greater benefits. Federal grant programs have recently evolved to include other factors to consider. Have you ever seen project a CBA that results in further devasting a disadvantaged/overburden community? Are you aware of updated CBA analysis techniques being taught in civil engineering programs that addresses this concern? What should ASCE do about this issue?

In civil engineering education we are taught to use Cost Benefit Analyses (CBA) to help us spend the public's money wisely by making sure that a project's public benefit is greater than the project cost. However, there may be unintended consequences when applying CBA to public projects.  The end result can be that we locate new roadways in lower income communities in which the cost of land acquisition is less and build flood control projects to benefit higher value properties/communities which results in greater benefits. Federal grant programs have recently evolved to include other factors to consider. Have you ever seen project a CBA that results in further devasting a disadvantaged/overburden community? Are you aware of updated CBA analysis techniques being taught in civil engineering programs that addresses this concern? What should ASCE do about this issue?