Urban Infrastructure And Governance

The book contains a selection of papers on urban governance in its multiple perspectives. It has evolved from the presentations made at the Third International Conference on Public Policy and Management held in 2008.The topics are grouped into several themes: Urban Plan and Governance, Urban Governance through Partnership and Participation, and Financing Urban Infrastructure. With several examples from developing nations, the book dwells into the practical and managerial aspects of urban planning, partnerships, participation, financial mobilization and effective governance. One of the highlights of the book is that it looks at financial mobilization as a strategy for governance and how the financial system in itself can be an instrument of governance.

This title takes the broadest possible scope to interrogate the emergence of “platform urbanism”, examining how it transforms urban infrastructure, governance, knowledge production, and everyday life, and brings together leading scholars and early-career researchers from across five continents and multiple disciplines. The volume advances theoretical debates at the leading edge of the intersection between urbanism, governance, and the digital economy, by drawing on a range of empirically detailed cases from which to theorize the multiplicity of forms that platform urbanism takes. It draws international comparisons between urban platforms across sites, with attention to the leading edges of theory and practice and explores the potential for a renewal of civic life, engagement, and participatory governance through “platform cooperativism” and related movements. A breadth of tangible and diverse examples of platform urbanism provides critical insights to scholars examining the interface of digital technologies and urban infrastructure, urban governance, urban knowledge production, and everyday urban life. The book will be invaluable on a range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses, as well as for academics and researchers in these fields, including anthropology, geography, innovation studies, politics, public policy, science and technology studies, sociology, sustainable development, urban planning, and urban studies. It will also appeal to an engaged, academia-adjacent readership, including city and regional planners, policymakers, and third-sector researchers in the realms of citizen engagement, industrial strategy, regeneration, sustainable development, and transport.

This book discusses the role of urban information systems, public private and community partnerships and co-operation between governmental, NGOs and CBOs, and a concern for participation and self-organization of stakeholders in the urban development process and attention for emerging institutional forms for urban governance in developing countries.

A comprehensive overview of the governance of urban infrastructures, this Companion combines illustrative cases with conceptual approaches to offer an innovative perspective on the governance of large urban infrastructure systems. Chapters examine the challenges facing urban infrastructure systems, including financial, economic, technological, social, ecological, jurisdictional and demand.

The magnitude of investment, the long time-frames involved and the influence of pre-existing infrastructure on urban infrastructure provision make a co-ordinated approach to forward-planning, policy development and implementation essential. There are major challenges in making decisions on urban infrastructure and getting management structures and processes in place. Getting it right generates long-term dividends; getting it wrong involves major costs, often borne by taxpayers. Urban Infrastructure: finance and management is posited on a strong belief that the physical structure of cities and the efficiency of infrastructure services delivered are driven by efficiencies within individual infrastructure sectors, lessons learnt across these sectors and the ability to co-ordinate and integrate sectors to generate economies of scale. This necessitates an interdisciplinary approach, integrating knowledge from finance, governance, planning and management as well as the characteristics of the individual urban infrastructure sectors involved. Here it is not only about getting the initial decisions and policy settings right, but also ensuring effective implementation. A major theme running through the book is the nature of institutions and the governance structures responsible for delivery and management of urban infrastructure and the decision making processes involved. The editors have taken a deliberately pragmatic approach to the finance and management of urban infrastructure; chapters are cross-sectorial and present both theory and practice. This book is for students and practitioners in policy, planning, urban management, infrastructure finance and management.

Cities can only exist because of the highly developed systems which underlie them, ensuring that energy, clean water, etc. are moved efficiently from producer to user, and that waste is removed. The urgent need to make the way that these services are provided more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable means that these systems are in a state of transition; from centralized to decentralized energy; from passive to smart infrastructure; from toll-free to road pricing. Such transitions are widely studied in the context of the influence of service providers, users, and regulators. Until now, however, relatively little attention has been given to the growing role of intermediaries in these systems. These consist of institutions and organizations acting in-between production and consumption, for example; NGOs who develop green energy labelling schemes in collaboration with producers and regulators to guide the user; consultants who advise businesses on how to save resources; and travel agents who match users with providers. Such intermediaries are in a position to shape the direction that technological transitions take, and ultimately the sustainability of urban networks. This book presents the first authoritative collection of research and analysis of the intermediaries that underpin the transitions that are taking place within urban infrastructures, showing how intermediaries emerge, the role that they play in key sectors - including energy, water, waste and building - and what impact they have on the governance of urban socio-technical networks.

Drawing on the lessons from successful and unsuccessful attempts at the reform of metropolitan governance, this book identifies ways by which central and metropolitan governments can work better to optimise the potential of each urban region.