Scaling up investment for sustainable urban infrastructure: a guide to national and subnational reform
This paper makes the case for a coordinated or systems approach to urban finance. Traditional approaches to urban finance have often focused on actions that cities can take, such as issuing municipal bonds or securing a good credit rating. Much of the recent literature emphasizes mechanisms such as debt financing, public-private partnerships, and land value capture instruments. Financing the Urban Transition, a 2017 report by the Coalition for Urban Transitions, surveyed more than 70 financing instruments that national and subnational governments could deploy, identifying instruments with especially high potential to raise and steer new resources for sustainable urban infrastructure. These instruments can potentially catalyze increased investment—but they also add to local debt and to the overall liabilities and risks facing government.
