Capital Cities’ Finance & Governance of Keen Interest to DC Policy Makers

Study Contrasts The District’s Funding Challenges with Other World Capitals

Contact: Andi Joseph
Director, Research & Communications
202.661.8678

September 16, 2010

Washington, DC–The newly released Finance and Governance of Capital Cities in Federal Systems  was brought to life today at the Washington, DC Economic Partnership, where chapter authors and book editors spoke to an intimate crowd of interested stakeholders.

Nat Gandhi, the District’s CFO, is one of the co-authors of the chapter about the District of Columbia, along with Yesim Yilmaz, Robert Zahradnik, and Marcy Edwards. Dr. Gandhi spoke to the audience about the District’s unique situation as both a state and a municipality, and how this affects the financing of the city. Both of the books editors, Rupak Chattopadhyay, Vice President, Forum of Federations and Enid Slack, Director, the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance , traveled from Canada to speak about why the book was written and the findings of the book, particularly the financial aspects of the study.

Beyond the District, the book focuses on select other capital cities: Canberra, Brussels, Ottawa, Addis Ababa, Berlin, New Delhi, Mexico City, Abuja, Cape Town and Pretoria, and Bern. The authors considered the extent to which capital cities and their governance are unique from cities of comparable size and demographics, and whether or not their situation is even more unique due to their role inside the federal system.

Finance and Governance of Capital Cities in Federal Systems was first published in November 2009. It is available for purchase available at the UDC bookstore and via the McGill Queens University Press website and Amazon.com.

For more information, please email Andi Joseph at ajoseph@wdcep.com.

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