Sustainable Urban Financial Networks and Systems

This book argues the failure lies not in a shortage of money but in the structure of the network through which capital reaches urban purposes. Cities produce most of the world's output and emissions, yet they struggle to finance their conversion into sustainable systems even while global capital searches for the long term assets they can offer.

Treating urban finance as a network of investors, intermediaries, regulators, instruments and territories, it shows how participation, regulation, instrument design and territorial capacity align or fail to align, and why rules adapt more slowly than the instruments they govern. The argument is tested against platform lending, crowdfunding, green finance, small island states and climate risk, and closes with a Global Urban Finance Compact.

Written for researchers in urban economics, finance and policy, and for the officials, regulators and investors who shape city budgets, it explains why fundable projects go unfunded and what would change it.