The Public Wealth of Cities: How to Unlock Hidden Assets to Boost Growth and Prosperity

by Dag Detter, Stefan Folster

Overview

How to leverage existing resources to meet the current and future needs of cities

Crumbling streets and bridges. Poorly performing schools and inadequate social services. These are common complaints in cities, which too often struggle just to keep the lights on, much less make the long-term investments necessary for future generations.

It doesn’t have to be this way. This book by two internationally recognized experts in public finance describes a new way of restoring economic vitality and financial stability to cities, using steps that already have been proven remarkably successful. The key is unlocking social, human, and economic wealth that cities already own but is out of sight—or “hidden.” A focus on existing public wealth helps to shift attention and resources from short-term spending to longer-term investments that can vastly raise the quality of life for many generations of urban residents.

A crucial first step is to understand a city’s balance sheet—too few cities comprehend how valuable a working tool this can be. With this in hand, taxpayers, politicians, and investors can better recognize the long-term consequences of political decisions and make choices that mobilize real returns rather than rely on more taxes, debt, or austerity.

Another hidden asset is real estate. Even poor cities own large swathes of poorly utilized land, or they control underperforming utilities and other commercial assets. Most cities could more than double their investments with smarter use of these commercial assets. Managing the city’s assets smartly through the authors’ proposed Urban Wealth Funds—at arm’s-length from short-term political influence—will enable cities to ramp up much needed infrastructure investments.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815729990
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	07/18/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	271
File size:	16 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

"

Stephen Breyer has been an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court since 1994. He received his law degree from Harvard Law School, clerked for Associate Justice Arthur J. Goldberg in the 1964–65 Supreme Court term, and taught at Harvard for nearly two decades before joining the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in 1980. President Clinton nominated Breyer to succeed Harry Blackmun on the Supreme Court in 1994.

Dag Detter is Managing Director of Detter&Co, specializing in unlocking public wealth. Previously he was the President of Stattum, the Swedish government holding company, and Director of State Enterprises at the Ministry of Industry.

Stefan Fölster is Director of the Reform Institute in Sweden and Associate Professor of economics at the Royal Institute of Technology, in Stockholm. He has been the chief economist at the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, and the author of many books on economic growth and social developments.

Detter and Fölster are the authors of The Public Wealth of Nations, named by both The Economist and The Financial Times as among the best books of 2015.

Thiru Vignarajah, who served as a law clerk for Justice Breyer the year of the Parents decision, is a partner at DLA Piper and previously served as a prosecutor in Baltimore and then deputy attorney general for Maryland. The son of public school teachers, Vignarajah himself attended public schools in Baltimore before studying at Yale University and Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Law Review.

"

Table of Contents

"

Contents:

Foreword

Preface

1. The Investment Trap

2. Why Some Cities Fail

3. Turbo Cities

4. Taking Control of a City's Balance Sheet

5. The Urban Wealth Fund: A Conduit for Maximizing Value

6. Succeeding with Urban Wealth Funds: Some Case Studies

7. Shrinking the Social Debt of Cities

8. Boosting the Value of Human Assets

9. Reinventing City Democracy

Notes

Index

"

Editorial Reviews

“Across the globe, people are flocking to cities. But some cities are thriving and others aren’t. As the process of urbanization continues, it’s crucial to understand why some cities succeed and others don’t. In this important and practical new book, Detter and Fölster teach us how to turn around distressed cities.”—Peter Orszag, Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Lazard, and former Director, Congressional Budget Office

“This is an important book. As the world’s population grows, some cities will be forced to adapt while others will founder. Identifying a city’s assets, improving management, and shifting resources from consumption to long-term investment make inherent sense and warrant close attention as a means to improve the quality of city life and standards of living.”—Fergus J. McCormick, Chief Economist, DBRS Rating Inc

“How do we deploy our public assets—our balance sheet—to meet critical social, human, and economic challenges? How do we move beyond the essential—unassailable accountability—to our ultimate goal, expanding our metro economic engines? Detter and Fölster take the lessons from their earlier work and apply them at the local level, where creativity and innovation are essential and where both the potential promise and pitfalls of government action are in stark relief.”—Anthony Williams, Executive Director, Federal City Council, and former Mayor, Washington, D.C.

“Cities are the locomotives of economic progress. But not all cities are successful. This fascinating and important book has divided them into the “treadmill towns” that fail and the “turbo-cities” that succeed. The difference, argue the authors, is that successful cities focus intelligently on developing their long-term assets. They build economic, social, and human wealth.”—Martin Wolf, Financial Times

From the Publisher