Abstract
Rapid urbanisation, low levels of income and savings and high costs of urban services are critical factors contributing to the widespread deterioration of the urban environment in most developing countries. The serious deficiencies in urban services are now widely recognised, but planning, resource allocation, financing and implementation of service delivery are generally unintegrated and disjointed. In many developing countries, especially in Asia, fiscal resources fall far short of the amounts needed to improve urban services, even if they were to be given high priority in development policies. In part this may be due to the adoption of inappropriate planning standards and technologies, but with few exceptions, the seriousness of resource deficiencies has not yet been fully grasped. Unconventional and far reaching changes are needed in the revenue and borrowing powers of local governments, in land policies and in intergovernmental fiscal relations.
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Notes
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, The Task Ahead for the Cities of Developing Countries (World Bank Staff Working Paper, no. 209) (Washington, DC: 1975).
Ibid., p. 3. It may be pointed out that in comparison with the rest of the world, developing countries in Asia taken together have a low rate of urbanisation (about 24 per cent), but a large absolute urban population size. See Johannes Linn, Cities in the Developing World: Policies for Their Equitable and Efficient Growth (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983).
Asian Development Bank, Bank’s Strategy for Assistance in Urban Development (Manila, 1980), (Draft).
Arch Dotson, ‘Urbanization and National Development in South and Southeast Asia’, Report of the Southeast Asia Development Advisory Group. Urban Development Panel Seminars (New York: Asia Society, 1972), pp. 1–2.
J. M. Dandekar and Nilakantha Rath, ‘Poverty in India’, Economic and Political Weekly, 6 (1971) pp. 25–48, 106–46;
W. Alonso, ‘What are New Towns For?’ Urban Studies, 7 (1970);
and Ved Prakash, New Towns in India (Monograph on Southern Asia; no. 8) (Durham, NC: Duke University, 1969).
See, for example, Orville F. Grimes, Housing for Low Income Urban Families (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976).
See Asian Development Bank, Key Indicators of Developing Member Countries of ADB Manila, ADB, 1976; and
World Bank, World Development Report, 1980 (Washington: World Bank, 1980).
Recommendation C.12 of HABITAT: United Nations Conference on Human Settlements, held in Vancouver, Canada, from 3 May to 11 June 1976; see also United Nations, Report of the United Nations Expert Working Group Meeting on Community Water Supply and Sanitation — Strategies for Development (Geneva, 1976).
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Urbanization: Sector Working Paper (Washington, DC, 1972), p. 19.
World Bank, Urbanization Sector Working Paper, p. 10 See also, World Bank, Learning by Doing: World Bank Lending for Urban Development, 1972–1982 (Washington: World Bank, 1983).
Gaudioso C. Sosmena and Amancia G. Laueta, ‘Financing Local Governments in the Philippines’, Tax Monthly, 17 (June 1976) pp. 115.
Eduardo Z. Romualdez, Angel O. Yoingco and Antonio O. Casem, Philippine Tax System (Manila: GIC Enterprises, 1970), p. 254.
R. S. Smith and Theodore M. Smith, ‘The Political Economy of Regional and Urban Revenue Policy in Indonesia’, Asian Survey 11 (August 1971) pp. 761–86.
Ursula K. Hicks, Development From Below (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961), p. 347.
These issues are discussed thoroughly in Harold B. Dunkerley et al., Urban Land Policy Issues and Opportunities (World Bank Staff working paper, no. 283) (Washington, DC, 1978). See also
William A. Doebele, Orville F. Grimes and Johannes F. Linn, ‘Participation of Beneficiaries in Financing Urban Services: Valorization Charges in Bogota, Colombia’, Land Economics (February 1979) pp. 73–92; and William A. Doebele, ‘Land Readjustment as an Alternative to Taxation for the Recovery of Betterment: The Case of South Korea’, Proceedings of the 15th Annual TRED Conference.
US Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, Local Non-Property Taxes and the Coordinating Role of the State (Washington, DC, 1961), p. 48.
See, for example, J. Maurice Miller, ‘Service Charge as an Important Revenue Source’, Municipal Finance, 25 (August 1953) pp. 49–53;
Dick Netzer, Economics and Urban Problems (New York: Basic Books, 1970);
and J. A. Stockfish, ‘Fees and Service as a Source of City Revenues: A Case Study of Los Angeles’, National Tax Journal, 13 (June 1960) pp. 97–121.
John A. Vieg et al., California Local Finance (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1960), p. 210.
See International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations in Developing Countries (World Bank Staff working paper, no. 304) (Washington, DC, 1978).
Quoted in Richard M. Bird, Taxation and Development: Lessons from Colombian Experience (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970), p. 147.
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© 1988 The United Nations
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Prakash, V. (1988). Financing Urban Services in Developing Countries. In: Rondinelli, D.A., Cheema, G.S. (eds) Urban Services in Developing Countries. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-13484-7_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-13484-7_3
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