Cities in National Constitutions: Northern Stagnation, Southern Innovation

Ran Hirschl
Additional contact information
Ran Hirschl: University of Toronto

No 51, IMFG Papers from University of Toronto, Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance

Abstract: In contrast with the constitutional silence concerning urban agglomeration and the stalemate with respect to city status in most Global North settings, several countries in Asia, Latin America, and Africa have generated new ideas about the constitutional governance of the metropolis and of the urban/rural divide more generally. In this paper, I explore what national constitutions around the world say (and do not say) about cities, before examining three of the most ambitious attempts to date to bolster the constitutional status of cities. These are the adoption in 1992 of the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution of India; the protection of city status in the constitution of Brazil (1988) and its support through the City Statute (2001); and the inclusion of a chapter in South Africa’s post-apartheid constitution (1996) devoted to cities as an order of government. The comparative analysis suggests that South Africa’s constitutionalization of city power is arguably the most effective of these attempts. In India and Brazil, constitutional experimentation with city emancipation has proven less effective, often succumbing to deeply engrained intergovernmental hierarchies and blatant political manoeuvring. Taken as a whole, this paper highlights the significance of necessity (the vast majority of urbanization takes place in the Global South), constitutional malleability, and, above all, political will in addressing the constitutional status of cities.

Keywords: national; constitutions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H10 H77 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2020-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published online

Downloads: (external link)
https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/ ... rschl_Nov%202020.pdf First version, 2020

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mfg:wpaper:51

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMFG Papers from University of Toronto, Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Enid Slack ().