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

城市增长和发展长期以来一直是世界各地城市规划者关注的焦点。城市专家通常将增长和发展的成功与失败理解为城市与当地经济以及当今日益与全球经济的联系的函数。但如今市政府在应对和干预这种经济变化中的具体作用是什么？城市政府如何应对快速城市化和广泛经济变革的新需求？在美国许多城市正在经历经济衰退和人口减少的同时，全球南方的城市正在为城市增长的新时代做出贡献。然而，当美国风格的增长管理转移到世界其他城市时，它们面临着截然不同的社会和经济背景。了解此类政策转移的影响对于制定针对全球和跨文化背景下城市增长的具体需求的新政策和计划至关重要。该项目旨在培训研究生实证、科学数据收集和分析的方法，其研究结果将分发给管理和制定城市规划和发展政策的组织。该研究还促进了国际科学合作。James Christopher Mizes 在 Teresa Caldeira 博士的指导下，将针对市政财政改革在城市和区域经济发展中的作用进行为期 18 个月的参与观察、半结构化访谈和档案研究。大部分研究将在达喀尔（塞内加尔）进行，其他研究地点将在阿比让（科特迪瓦）和华盛顿特区（美国）进行。达喀尔是一个合适的主要研究地点，因为该城市是撒哈拉以南非洲城市治理和管理的典范。此外，达喀尔市正在试验美国政府支持的计划，旨在在地区证券市场上发行该地区第一批市政债券。为了改善城市财政并偿还即将到期的债务，达喀尔市重新努力增加从城市非正规经济中获得的收入。与此同时，市政府还制定了一项雄心勃勃的计划，将达喀尔的许多摊贩从城市街道上迁出。本研究将探讨如何将城市街道和市政财政理解为当代问题，一套不断发展的政府战略如何应对这些问题，以及由此产生的城市街道市场和区域证券市场的经济实践。

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.