Managing the Private Financing of Urban Infrastructure

Abstract

This article explores the implications of private financing for the functioning of urban infrastructure, with a particular emphasis on Australian cities. The article charts the directions of infrastructure financing in Australia from the 1980s onwards, being the period when privatisation and financialisation of utilities and state-owned enterprises in Australia gathers momentum. It then explains how infrastructure emerged globally as an asset class with exposition of how the particular characteristics of urban infrastructure have proven to be attractive to private capital interests. A concluding section points to directions in infrastructure financing that merit close attention from an urban planning perspective.