This paper considers the cases of urban redevelopment at waterfront and brownfield sites in Copenhagen (Denmark) and Hamburg (Germany) to explore how two municipal governments have pursued divergent kinds of entrepreneurial governance, even as they have aimed to create similar kinds of new-build neighbourhoods. Copenhagen and Hamburg have both engaged in large-scale speculative development projects, simultaneously raising urban land values and adding urban public good. The cities follow a long tradition of using land value capture to raise funds for municipal activities, yet their scopes of action and tools for achieving progress have been shaped by local economic and political conditions. Although both cities began redevelopment at similar kinds of sites in the 1990s, Copenhagen’s municipal government was relatively impoverished, while Hamburg’s municipal government was relatively wealthy. As a result, even though both cities deployed state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and revolving funds models to reinvest revenues in future development, they possessed different potential strategies for increasing intercity competitiveness: Copenhagen’s immediate aim in redeveloping its Ørestad and harbour districts was to fund a citywide mass transit system and thereby enhance competitiveness through infrastructure development, while Hamburg sought to use its HafenCity waterfront redevelopment to boost competitiveness through port modernisation, increased in urban quality and commercial expansion in the city centre. By comparing these two cases, we can better understand the contingent nature of entrepreneurial governance and urban redevelopment processes.
This article explores the mutual influence between a city government’s jurisdictional capacity (its ability to plan and implement policy) and its interactions with other governance actors. It does so by quantifying, categorizing, and analyzing the composition of governance actors at various levels (national, regional, local) and of various types (public, private, civic) that are active in large-scale urban development projects in three cities: Hamburg, Manchester, Pittsburgh. Considering these findings in the context of national governance infrastructures, the article argues that divergent arrays of jurisdictional capacity (linked to multilevel distributions of state power) influence how city governments engage with other governance actors and influence which governance actors they engage with. This not only impacts project outcomes but also ultimately reinforces the kinds of governance strategies in which cities engage.
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