Data Is Economic Infrastructure, Too
- Editorial
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Integrating cadastral records, business activity, public services, mobility, and administrative procedures can reduce uncertainty, strengthen revenue collection, and turn municipal information into a competitive advantage.
When a municipal government discusses economic infrastructure, it usually thinks of roads, industrial parks, water networks, energy, or connectivity. These are visible assets: they are budgeted, built, and physically transform the territory. Yet another, less visible form of infrastructure determines whether those investments can be used efficiently: the capacity to produce, integrate, and use reliable data.
A municipality may offer industrial land, highway access, and an available workforce, yet lose an investment because it cannot explain which sites have compatible land uses, how much water or electricity capacity is available, how long a permit will take, where suppliers are concentrated, or which risks surround a location. The absence of accurate information is not merely an administrative problem. It is an economic cost that delays decisions, increases risk, and weakens confidence.
“A territory that cannot explain itself through data cannot compete with clarity.”
You can listen to this article here:
Mexico already has a substantial data foundation. The current edition of INEGI’s National Statistical Directory of Economic Units contains information on more than six million establishments, including their location, economic activity, and size. Economic value emerges when these records are connected with updated cadastral information, land-use rules, permits, mobility, water, energy, public safety, housing, and workforce availability. Separate databases describe fragments; integrated systems reveal the local productive economy.
Uncertainty also has a price
For a company, choosing where to locate means comparing risks, timelines, and costs. When territorial information is scattered across offices, spreadsheets, paper files, and incompatible platforms, the decision becomes slower and more expensive. Discretion also increases: different departments may provide contradictory answers about the same property, permit, or service.
The challenge is not solved by creating a portal that simply accumulates files. In the OECD’s 2025 OURdata Index—which evaluates national open government data policies on a scale from 0 to 1—Mexico obtained a composite score of 0.25, below the OECD average of 0.53. It received 0.00 for government support for data reuse, while Brazil achieved a composite score of 0.70. Although the index does not directly assess municipalities, it exposes a relevant institutional gap: publishing information is different from creating the conditions to reuse it and transform it into public and economic value.
Information infrastructure therefore requires rules, accountable institutions, and continuous maintenance. It must establish which department produces each record, under which standard, how frequently it is updated, how errors are corrected, who may consult it, and under which conditions it can be shared. It also requires interoperability, personal-data protection, cybersecurity, and public officials capable of interpreting information.
From cadastre to territorial strategy
The cadastre is a starting point, but it should not be the final destination. A competitive municipality needs an architecture that connects properties, addresses, businesses, permits, infrastructure, and services through common identifiers.
Such integration can reveal logistics corridors, saturated commercial districts, areas where housing has failed to follow employment, networks with insufficient capacity, or underused properties. It can also strengthen property-tax collection, identify changes in land use, and direct public investment toward locations with the greatest productive impact.
The World Bank argues that realizing the value of data requires integrated systems that enable information to be produced, protected, exchanged, and used in planning. This vision is already translating into public investment. In 2025, the Bank approved a US$35 million concessional credit to strengthen Uzbekistan’s geospatial infrastructure, accompanied by approximately US$5.7 million in government co-financing. The project includes cadastral systems, address registries, standards, data centers, and regional and municipal capabilities because unreliable territorial information constrains planning and discourages investment.
The lesson applies to Mexico: geographic, economic, and administrative records are not technological appendices. They are a platform for reducing uncertainty, increasing the productivity of public spending, and providing greater certainty to citizens and businesses.
“Physical infrastructure moves goods; data infrastructure moves decisions.”
You can see this article here:
A municipal economic agenda
Building this capability can begin with a concrete priority: an integrated territorial economic map linking cadastral records, land use, permits, public services, mobility, and business activity. The objective is not to accumulate every possible data point, but to identify the highest-value records, clean them, and keep them current and operational.
Success should be measured through outcomes: faster responses to investors, more accurate planning, quicker permits, stronger property-tax collection, and traceable public decisions. It also requires administrative continuity, because an outdated database can create as much uncertainty as the absence of information.
Municipalities that treat data as infrastructure will be better prepared to anticipate pressure, guide investment, and negotiate projects intelligently. Those that continue managing information as scattered files will keep paying the price of improvisation.
Is your municipality already building the data infrastructure it needs to compete, or is it still governing its territorial economy with fragmented information?
Written by: Editorial
Comments