Paper short abstract:

My research examines the processes through which city governments across global north and south have adopted strategic planning and responded to socioeconomic pressures in times of crisis.

Paper long abstract:

My research examines the processes through which city governments across global north and south have adopted strategic planning and responded to socioeconomic pressures in times of crisis. The paper interrogates the extent to which some policy experiments developed in Latin America and Europe are [un]suitable to deal with the cyclical nature of hegemonic economic models.

Argentina's history of fiscal imbalances and Spain's ongoing debt issues will help to place recent crises into context, thinking across time from a comparative and historical perspective. The governments of Valencia and Mar del Plata will serve as case studies. Following multiple macroeconomic reforms, debt and financial crises, as well as democratisation and decentralisation, these cities have gained similar levels of autonomy in their respective national contexts and considerable power to set up their own policies.

My project involves policy research. However, unlike extensive literature dealing with the consequences of adjustment programmes in the global south OR the impact of austerity urbanism in the global north, I explore the structures, processes and actors involved in devising, negotiating, adapting and deciding upon economic development agendas and responses to crises at the local level. Theoretically, the project engages with comparative urbanism and its potential to stretch conventional ideas and concepts from urban theory, institutional economics and regulation theory.