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Inequality and Governance in the Metropolis

Place Equality Regimes and Fiscal Choices in Eleven Countries

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  • © 2017

Overview

  • Produced as the outcome of a ten-year international research collaboration focused on how countries handle territorial inequalities in their major metropolitan areas
  • Addresses an important, overlooked and timely issue: the intrinsic tension between economic growth, welfare-state models of social justice and spatial distribution/redistribution
  • Includes qualitative analysis of welfare regimes and the role of cities in service provision alongside quantitative studies of intra-metropolitan revenue and spending data in each region

Part of the book series: Comparative Territorial Politics (COMPTPOL)

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Table of contents (13 chapters)

  1. The Tieboutian Model

  2. The Full Equalization Model

Keywords

About this book

This book undertakes the first systematic, multi-country investigation into how regimes of place equality, consisting of multilevel policies, institutions and governance at multiple scales, influence spatial inequality in metropolitan regions. Extended, diversified metropolitan regions have become the dominant form of human settlement, and disparities among metropolitan places figure increasingly in wider trends toward growing inequality. Regimes of place equality are increasingly critical components of welfare states and territorial administration. They can aggravate disparities in services and taxes, or mitigate and compensate for local differences. The volume examines these regimes in a global sample of eleven democracies, including developed and developing countries on five continents. The analyses reveal new dimensions of efforts to grapple with growing inequality around the world, and a variety of institutional blueprints to address one of the most daunting challenges of twenty-first century governance. 

Reviews

“I much enjoyed this book and found it a stimulating and informative read that generated new ideas for further research. It also fills an important gap in the ‘metropolitan debate’ by linking intra-metropolitan perspectives to those of international, global comparison and a concern with global processes in which cities take an increasingly more pre-eminent role. … I certainly would recommend this book as an engaging, thought-provoking and informative read.” (Tassilo Herrschel, Regional Studies, Vol. 53 (12), 2019)

“These outstanding essays demonstrate the growing significance of metropolitan spatial inequalities in a range of countries across the globe. Using comparative data on taxing and spending, the authors show how institutions at different levels of government accentuate or mitigate spatial inequalities. This well-planned collection provides a vital guide to the causes of this new form of inequality and the strategies that work to remedy it.” (Professor Margaret Weir, Brown University, USA)

“In a context of growing global inequality, looking into the mechanisms that organize fiscal solidarity among jurisdictions in charge of providing services to citizens is a much needed perspective. By disentangling the complex territorial relations within which metropolitan regions are embedded, the authors of this collection highlight the important role of policies in shaping individual choices, their context sensitivity and the diversification of places across the globe. A must read for understanding the importance of spatial relations in policy analysis.” (Professor Yuri Kazepov, University of Vienna, Austria)

“This book could not be more timely. There is growing concern worldwide with the intensification of socio-spatial inequalities both within and between cities around the globe.  Responses to this situation have ranged from capitulation to despair, and in some parts of the world we are seeing mobilization and active citizen challenges to longstanding political practices and governance paradigms as a result. This edited collection offers a much-needed and constructive perspective on the topic by placing scales of governance and creative policy responses at the heart of the debate. Through deep engagement with eleven different country cases, it becomes clear that there is no single response to the challenges of growing inequality and exclusion in a globalizing and urbanizing world, and that certain political arrangements and policy tools are more well-suited to the task of making cities more equitable, redistributive, and manageable places to live.” (Professor Diane E. Davis, Harvard University, USA)

Editors and Affiliations

  • University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA

    Jefferey M. Sellers

  • University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Marta Arretche

  • University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Daniel Kübler

  • The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

    Eran Razin

About the editors

Jefferey Sellers is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Southern California, USA. The author of Governing from Below: Urban Regions and the Global Economy (2005), he is the co-founder and co-director of the International Metropolitan Observatory (IMO), the largest international network for the study of metropolitan regions and their politics, of which this book is the third collective publication.

 

Marta Arretche is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for Metropolitan Studies at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. She is also the editor of the Brazilian Political Science Review.

 

Daniel Kübler is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Democracy Studies at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. He is co-director of the International Metropolitan Observatory.

 

Eran Razin is Professor of Geography, the Leon Safdie Chair in Urban Studies, Director of the Institute of Urban and Regional Studies and Head of Floersheimer Studies, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

Bibliographic Information

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