Pushing austerity: state failure, municipal bankruptcy and the crises of fiscal federalism in the USA

Peck, Jamie

doi:10.1093/cjres/rst018

Cited by 188 publications

(256 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Once a safe haven, if not something of a backwater, the nation's municipal bond market has been registering exponential growth since the 1970s, while extending its tentacles deep into the domains of municipal management and urban governance, perhaps most tangibly through practices like credit rating (see Hackworth, 2007). In parallel with (and coproduced with) this expansion and privatisation of municipal credit markets, the tightening grip of 'fiscal federalism' (the regulatory doctrine that has it that jurisdictions should operate within their own means, minimising intergovernmental transfers) has normalised conditions of devolved budgetary discipline and lean administration, unevenly realised of course (Peck, 2014b). These are but some of the facets of what amounts to a web of financialised structures, practices, narratives, techniques and procedures that has progressively colonised the (inter)urban system.…”

Section: Austerity Central?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Transatlantic city, part 1: Conjunctural urbanism

2016

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As the first installment of a two-part article exploring contemporary transformations in metropolitan governance in the wake of the entrepreneurial turns of the 1980s and subsequent waves of neoliberalisation and financialisation, a case is outlined here for a 'conjunctural' approach to urban analysis. This can be considered to be complementary to, but at the same time distinct from, some of the concurrent approaches to comparative urbanism, in that it explicitly problematises the relative positioning of cities in the context of uneven development and multiscalar relations, as well as the dialogic connections between case studies, midlevel concepts and revisable theory claims. Taking as its point of departure the current financial and political crisis in Atlantic City, the New Jersey casino capital, the article historicises the concept of the entrepreneurial city, placing this in the context, successively, of the evolving 'commonsense' of neoliberal governance, the emergence of austerity urbanism and the intensification of financialised restructuring. In tracing an arc from more abstract theory claims through to the specific circumstances of contemporary urban restructuring in the United States, the article sets the stage for the more granular and concrete analysis of 'late-entrepreneurial' Atlantic City to follow in Part 2. To the extent that it is necessary to construct some of this staging, this first part of the article reflects on some of the methodological implications of a conjunctural approach to urban studies.

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Section: Austerity Central?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Transatlantic city, part 1: Conjunctural urbanism

2016

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“…This was judged to be a brave move for a newly elected small-government conservative, to whom a recently appointed commission had reported, 'it is reasonable to ask if Atlantic City gaming is savable' (quoted in Perez-Pena, 2010: 20). On the other hand, it was in step with the political moment, echoing as it did similarly aggressive moves against an array of cash-strapped cities -many of them low-income, communities of colour, with collapsing subprime real-estate markets -on the part of an incoming cohort of Republican governors (see Peck, 2014;Varghese and Young, 2016).…”

Section: Emergency Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

Transatlantic city, part 2: Late entrepreneurialism

Peck

2016

Urban Studies

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The first installment of this two-part paper made a case for a conjunctural approach to urban studies, reserving a special place for the provisional formulation and ongoing revision of midlevel theories -from the entrepreneurial city to austerity urbanism and financialised urban governance -while positioning abstraction and contextualisation as simultaneous, dialogic practices. It follows that such arguments can be developed only so far in the absence of concrete cases, where conjunctural accounts actually gain traction, direction and purpose. Seeking to operationalise some of these methodological principles by way of a situated, single-city case study, this part of the paper returns to the financially challenged casino capital of Atlantic City, tracing its long (and notorious) history of entrepreneurial dealings, from Republican machine control to the 'experiment' with legalised gambling that was launched in the mid-1970s, and positioning the structural crisis that preceded the casino pact with the existential crisis that has been generated in the wake of the failure of this distinctive local growth machine. Atlantic City made a very large wager that did not pay off, the unravelling of its much-emulated model of entrepreneurial urbanism dramatising a distinctly 'late-entrepreneurial' moment of fiscally mandated governance and political crisis.

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“…Lesser financial input will trickle down to lesser budget availability not only for city development but also for its maintenance. This might lead to an increase in urban decay, as has been the case with Detroit in USA [4]. In fact, at the moment more than 95% of municipal revenue is used for administrative ends such as salaries for the employees and the government lacks funds to be injected in existing cities [5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Economically Incentivising Smart Urban Regeneration. Case Study of Port Louis, Mauritius

Allam

Newman

2018

Smart Cities

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Port Louis, the capital city of Mauritius, has been the preferred city for hosting the judicial, political and business activities of the country for the past two centuries. However, new policies have created nine new smart cities in greenfield locations within 10 km from Port Louis, so the capital city is facing economic decline as it is losing businesses, as well as administrative functions. This loss equates to an erosion in municipal revenue along with a reduced interest in contributing to the development of the city; all of which takes a toll on its urban economic landscape, as well as on the broader Mauritian economy. This paper builds from the findings of a focus group study to propose a smart urban regeneration model for the City of Port Louis, which could enable the old city to be restored and regenerated rather than redeveloped in modernist architecture, as has happened in the new smart cities model. A smart urban regeneration model is proposed backed by the pillars of smart infrastructure, culture, metabolism and governance. The proposed model is applied to the context of Port Louis to generate an urban regeneration scheme. The potential benefits in terms of financial outcomes, investment attraction and job creation are explored through a combined application of econometric forecasting models. The results support positive figures of both investment and job creation, and the findings of this study aim at informing and providing the governing bodies of Port Louis with a tangible solution for revamping the centuries-old capital city, as well as demonstrating to the world that smart cities can mean sensitive urban regeneration.Keywords: urban regeneration; economics; culture; port louis; smart cities; fiscal measures IntroductionNested in the North-West littoral side of the Island of Mauritius and bounded inland by a mountain range, Port Louis extends over an area of 46.7 km 2 . With a total population of 119,333 inhabitants as at December 2016, the capital city of Mauritius is the most densely populated geographical district of the island with 2954 P/km 2 [1]. Port Louis hosts the only trade port of the island and has been the main administrative centre from a judicial, political and business perspective for more than two centuries. However, within the last decade, there has been an emergence of Techno-parks and privately-owned smart cities across the island which opened a new competitive landscape for businesses and administrative functions [2]. There have been notable highlighted risks that the loss in business and administrative functions from both the state and privately-owned organisations will eventually lead to an erosion in municipal revenue [3]. Lesser financial input will trickle down to lesser budget availability not only for city development but also for its maintenance. This might lead to an increase in urban decay, as has been the case with Detroit in USA [4]. In fact, at the moment more than 95% of municipal revenue is used for administrative ends such as salaries for the employe...

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Pushing austerity: state failure, municipal bankruptcy and the crises of fiscal federalism in the USA

Cited by 188 publications

References 21 publications

Transatlantic city, part 1: Conjunctural urbanism

Transatlantic city, part 1: Conjunctural urbanism

Transatlantic city, part 2: Late entrepreneurialism

Economically Incentivising Smart Urban Regeneration. Case Study of Port Louis, Mauritius

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