Global markets / local shifts: Urban restructuring through municipal debt in Mexico City and Johannesburg
Duration: 05/2019-02/2020
Funding: DAAD-P.R.I.M.E (BMBF/Marie-Curie Actions of the European Commission)
Project Partners: Dr. Verónica Crossa, El Colegio de México (Mexico City), Prof. Dr. Patrick Bond, Wits University (Johannesburg)
Project team: Dr. Hanna Hilbrandt
This project examines the local effects of financial globalization in cities of the global South. Although financial actors have long considered cities in poor and middle-income countries too risky for capital investment, urgent demands for sustainable growth, the paucity of local revenue streams and supportive development policies are currently moving these cities into the spotlight of capital flows. What happens once these investments hit the ground?
In answering this question, this project compares the adoption of Green Municipal Bonds (GMBs), debt instruments that allow cities to raise capital for sustainable urban projects, in Mexico City and Johannesburg. Pioneers in their implementation, both cities have recently financed numerous sustainable projects through GMBs, the local effects of which remain to be understood. Based on interview data and spatial analyses, I pursue two lines of investigation: First, I consider the transformation of urban governance and planning with regard to changes in financial, spatial and fiscal regulation that were required for the cities to issue GMBs. Second, I consider the socio-spatial effects of these developments resulting from the spatial allocation of resources, the types of projects that are financed, the involvement of local publics in decision-making processes as well as the winners and looser in these processes.