Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: Challenges for Building Sustainable Cities in Developing Countries

(Sustainable Urban and Metropolitan Development)

Sustainable cities, urban development and smart growth policies can be adopted and applied in a developing country, if there are basic welfare conditions covered, strong administrative capacity and local fiscal certainty.​ The global processes of homogenizing cities through concepts such as sustainable cities promoted by international organizations provides solutions that are actively searching for problems; a situation similar to the New Public Management movement: The model pursues contradictory goals.

The results and attempts to implement sustainable urban policies in developing countries are not always successful, due to different interpretations of the concept of sustainability, as well as the problems that local governments face with their public management systems. In this context, the goal of the panel is to analyze some significant urban problems in Mexico (related to governance, metropolitan collaboration, local policies, and public safety), and discuss the main challenges that Mexican cities face to be sustainable (from a social, economic, and environmental view).