ABSTRACT

Municipal revenue is an important site of urban statecraft. Against the backdrop of the metropolitan consolidation of Cape Town’s urban governance in 2000, this paper traces two key revenue sources: national transfers to local government, with a focus on conditional grants; and the City’s own sources, including property tax and service charges. While the design of these instruments intends to be redistributive and support metropolitan autonomy, their deployment poses challenges and contradictions, particularly for the everyday operations of the urban state. Not only does the analysis demonstrate the underexplored role of revenue instruments and logics in urban statecraft, but also the importance of ‘placing’ debates about urban fiscal geographies in southern cities.

摘要

市政收入是城市治国的重要场所。在 2000 年开普敦城市治理大都市整合的背景下，本文追溯了两个主要收入来源：国家向地方政府转移支付，重点是有条件拨款；以及纽约市自己的来源，包括财产税和服务费。虽然这些工具的设计旨在重新分配并支持大都市自治，但它们的部署带来了挑战和矛盾，特别是对于城市国家的日常运作。分析不仅证明了收入工具和逻辑在城市治国方略中的作用未被充分探索，而且证明了在南方城市“放置”关于城市财政地理的辩论的重要性。