Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Impact of Municipal Finance Reform on Urban and Regional Securities Markets

长期以来，城市增长和发展一直是世界各地城市规划者关注的中心问题。城市专家往往认为，增长和发展的兴衰取决于城市与当地经济的联系，如今，这种联系越来越多地与全球经济联系在一起。但是，在应对和干预当今这种经济变化方面，市政府的确切作用是什么？城市政府如何应对快速城市化和广泛经济变化的新需求？与此同时，美国的许多城市正在经历经济衰退和人口减少，而全球南部的城市正在为城市增长的新时代做出贡献。然而，当美国的增长管理风格被世界其他城市取代时，它们面临的是非常不同的社会和经济背景。了解这种政策转移的影响，对于制定新的政策和方案，以适应全球和跨文化背景下城市增长的具体需求至关重要。该项目对研究生进行实证性、科学的数据收集和分析方法的培训，其结果将传播给管理和制定城市规划和发展政策的组织。这项研究还促进了国际科学合作。詹姆斯·克里斯托弗·米泽斯在特蕾莎·卡尔代拉博士的指导下，将就市政金融改革在城市和区域经济发展中的作用进行为期18个月的参与者观察、半结构访谈和档案研究。这项研究的大部分将在达喀尔(塞内加尔)进行，在阿比让(科特迪瓦)和华盛顿特区(美国)也有其他地点。达喀尔是一个合适的主要研究地点，因为这座城市是撒哈拉以南非洲城市治理和管理的典范。此外，达喀尔市正在试验由美国政府支持的项目，目的是在地区证券市场发行该地区首批市政债券。为了改善该市的财政状况，偿还迫在眉睫的债务，达喀尔市再次努力增加从城市非正规经济中获得的收入。与此同时，该市还制定了一项雄心勃勃的计划，将达喀尔的许多小贩从城市街道上迁走。这项研究将考察城市街道和市政金融是如何被理解为当代问题的，一套不断演变的政府战略是如何应对这些问题的，以及由此产生的城市街道市场和区域证券市场的一系列经济实践。

Urban growth and development have long been central preoccupations of city planners across the world. And urban experts often understand the fortunes and failures of growth and development as a function of a city's links to the local and, increasingly today, the global economy. But what is the precise role of municipal government in responding to and intervening in such economic change today? How do city governments respond to novel demands of rapid urbanization and widespread economic change? At the same time that many cities in the United States are undergoing economic decline and depopulation, cities in the Global South are contributing to a new era of urban growth. Yet when American styles of growth management are displaced to cities elsewhere in the world, they are presented with very different social and economic contexts. Understanding the effects of such policy transfers is critical for developing new policies and programs oriented towards the specific demands of urban growth in a global and cross-cultural context. Findings from this project, which trains a graduate student in methods of empirical, scientific data collection and analysis, will be disseminated to organizations that manage and develop policy for urban planning and development. The research also fosters international scientific cooperation.James Christopher Mizes, under the supervision of Dr. Teresa Caldeira, will conduct 18 months of participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and archival research on the role of municipal finance reform in the development of urban and regional economies. The majority of this research will take place in Dakar (Senegal) with additional sites in Abidjan (Côte d'Ivoire), and Washington, D.C. (U.S.A.). Dakar is an appropriate primary research site because the city is a model of urban governance and administration in Sub-Saharan Africa. Further, the City of Dakar is experimenting with programs supported by the U.S. government that are aimed at issuing the region's first municipal bonds on the regional securities market. In an effort to improve the city's finances and pay back impending debts, the City of Dakar has renewed its efforts to increase the revenues it collects from the urban informal economy. At the same time, the municipality has also developed an ambitious plan to relocate many of Dakar's vendors from the urban street. This research will examine how urban streets and municipal finance have come to be understood as contemporary problems, how an evolving set of governmental strategies are responding to these problems, and the resulting constellation of economic practices in urban street markets and regional securities markets.