Urban infrastructure finance from private operators : what have we learned from recent experience ?

The author examines the role of private participation in infrastructure (PPI) in mobilizing finance for key urban services, that is, urban roads, municipal solid waste management, and water and sanitation since the early 1990s when private participation came to be seen as a key element in infrastructure development. Her review indicates that for financing urban services, PPI has disappointed-playing a far less significant role than was hoped for, and which might be expected given the attention it has received and continues to receive in strategies to mobilize financing for infrastructure. Looking beyond the number, the author examines transactions and finds that there are good reasons-practical, political, economic and institutional-for these disappointments. Recommending that cities in developing countries try harder is not likely to relieve all these constraints. Experience shows that there are a number of features that raise the risk profile of urban infrastructure for private investors, which has meant that the bulk of the transactions that have taken place have been exceptions rather than harbingers of a growing trend. Many of the measures that could reduce the risk profile are outside the control of many cities, others unlikely to change, and yet another group of steps to be taken that would improve prospects for urban service provision, whether in the hands of public or private operators. These findings suggest a more pragmatic and selective approach to the focus on PPI as a source of finance, and more focus on the array of some of the fundamental steps, among them strengthening the public finances of cities to improve both the capacity to deliver services and to reduce the risks that private investors must take when they invest in urban infrastructure.Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Non Bank Financial Institutions,Urban Slums Upgrading,Urban Services to the Poor

Financing Indian cities : opportunities and constraints in an Nth best world

This paper examines international experience with mobilizing funding for both capital and recurrent costs for municipal infrastructure with a view to identifying areas where India could improve its system of financing infrastructure in cities. Based on international data, the analysis shows that there is indeed a wide range of models for funding municipal infrastructure across a group even as relatively homogeneous as the European Union. Although a number of different models operate in countries with very good services, important features of India’s municipal finance system stand out. The spending per capita is exceptionally low, even when compared with local governments with few functions. The real estate sector generates meager tax revenues, but transfers from higher levels of government are also meager. Turning to cost recovery models for services, the paper examines international evidence on cost recovery. In practice, a surprisingly large number of countries, including high-income countries, subsidize basic municipal services, particularly in water supply and sanitation. Analysis shows that these subsidies often have perverse distributional effects. Likewise, pricing schemes designed to skew subsidies to low-income households often have unintended distributional effects. Again, evidence from urban India suggests that cost recovery is exceptionally low, not only in absolute terms but relative to the experience of other low and middle-income countries. The paper concludes with a discussion of some of the measures that should be considered for improving finances in Indian cities, includingland monetization and capital grants systems designed specifically for reaching secondary cities and towns.Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Public Sector Economics,Banks&Banking Reform,Public Sector Management and Reform,Municipal Financial Management

Per-Pixel Versus Object-Based Classification of Urban Land Cover Extraction Using High Spatial Resolution Imagery

In using traditional digital classification algorithms, a researcher typically encounters serious issues in identifying urban land cover classes employing high resolution data. A normal approach is to use spectral information alone and ignore spatial information and a group of pixels that need to be considered together as an object. We used QuickBird image data over a central region in the city of Phoenix, Arizona to examine if an object-based classifier can accurately identify urban classes. To demonstrate if spectral information alone is practical in urban classification, we used spectra of the selected classes from randomly selected points to examine if they can be effectively discriminated. The overall accuracy based on spectral information alone reached only about 63.33%. We employed five different classification procedures with the object-based paradigm that separates spatially and spectrally similar pixels at different scales. The classifiers to assign land covers to segmented objects used in the study include membership functions and the nearest neighbor classifier. The object-based classifier achieved a high overall accuracy (90.40%), whereas the most commonly used decision rule, namely maximum likelihood classifier, produced a lower overall accuracy (67.60%). This study demonstrates that the object-based classifier is a significantly better approach than the classical per- pixel classifiers. Further, this study reviews application of different parameters for segmentation and classification, combined use of composite and original bands, selection of different scale levels, and choice of classifiers. Strengths and weaknesses of the object-based prototype are presented and we provide suggestions to avoid or minimize uncertainties and limitations associated with the approach.

Surveying the Sickbeds: Initial Steps towards Modelling All-Ireland Hospital Accessibility

There has been increasing interest in recent years by both civil servants and academics in both Irish jurisdictions in modelling economic and social structures across the whole island, with health services one of the key areas explored 1 . There has been some limited cross-border movement in the utilisation of health care, and a recently published preliminary study by Jamison and Butler (2007) 2 examined the existing configuration of acute hospital ser vices, identifying considerable potential for cr oss-bor der collaboration in these services, particularly in the border region

Surveying the Sickbeds: Initial Steps towards Modelling All-Ireland Hospital Accessibility

There has been increasing interest in recent years by both civil servants and academics in both Irish jurisdictions in modelling economic and social structures across the whole island, with health services one of the key areas explored 1 . There has been some limited cross-border movement in the utilisation of health care, and a recently published preliminary study by Jamison and Butler (2007) 2 examined the existing configuration of acute hospital ser vices, identifying considerable potential for cr oss-bor der collaboration in these services, particularly in the border region

Australian newspaper history: a bibliography - additional entries

The bibliography covers national, capital city and provincial newspapers as well as information about media history in Australia since its founding. It also covers ethnic and indigenous press and industrial papers