‘Deal or no deal?’ Governing urban infrastructure funding and financing in the UK City Deals

Peter O’Brien and Andy Pike
Additional contact information
Peter O’Brien: Newcastle University, UK
Andy Pike: Newcastle University, UK

Urban Studies, 2019, vol. 56, issue 7, 1448-1476

Abstract: How urban infrastructure is funded, financed and governed is a central issue for states at the national, city-regional and city scales. Urban infrastructure is being financialised by financial and state actors and transformed into an asset in the international investment landscape. Local governments are being compelled by national state and financial institutions to be more entrepreneurial in their infrastructure funding and financing and to reorganise their governance arrangements. This article explains the socially and spatially uneven unfolding and implications of urban infrastructure financialisation and local government attempts to implement more entrepreneurial practices and governance forms. The empirical focus is the City Deals in the UK: a new form of urban governance and infrastructure investment based upon negotiated central–local government agreements on decentralised powers, responsibilities and resources. The continued authority of the highly centralised UK national state, its managerialist institutions and conservative/risk-averse administrative culture have constrained urban infrastructure financialisation and entrepreneurial urban governance in the UK City Deals. Situated in their particular spatial, temporal, political-economic and institutional settings, financialisation is understood as a socially and spatially variegated process and urban governance is interpreted as the articulation and mixing of new entrepreneurial and enduring managerialist forms.

Keywords: economic development; finance/financialisation; governance; infrastructure; infrastructure funding and financing; urban infrastructure; ç» æµŽå ‘å±•; é‡‘èž /é‡‘èž åŒ–; æ²»ç †; 基础设施; åŸºç¡€è®¾æ–½èž èµ„å’Œèž èµ„; 城市基础设施 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098018757394 (text/html)

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:sae:urbstu:v:56:y:2019:i:7:p:1448-1476

DOI: 10.1177/0042098018757394

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Urban Studies from Urban Studies Journal Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().