Some of the most interesting analogies are found in the most unexpected places.
On the Freakonomics blog, there is an ongoing debate regarding whether or not Amtrak can ever turn a profit (link). One of the participants, Nate Berg, argued for the value of the link between the cities as playing a vital (and often overlooked) role:
The return on investment for these services doesn’t have to be direct, and for transportation modes like passenger rail it often isn’t.
Think of transportation as a line connecting two dots. The economic value of this connection is captured not by the transportation
method itself, but by the people and places it connects. The value is in the dots, not the line. But without the line, the two
(and in reality many) dots would have trouble sharing and compounding their relative economic powers.
These dots, the mid and endpoints of these transportation corridors, though, are not just single businesses or factories.
They are cities, which are increasingly the centers and enablers of economic power. And while it’s true that Amtrak lines
aren’t the only ways to get from one city to the next, they can play a valuable role in allowing people and services to travel
between these economic centers in as many ways as possible.
I work in the Information Services department. In many ways, we are like that Amtrak service. We connect the departments together to allow for the free flow of information from place to place. Without smooth and reliable connections, it's very difficult for the various nodes to operate at peak efficiency.
It's not a perfect analogy, but I think that it does help to underscore the vital importance of infrastructure (both seen and unseen).
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