Shanghai And Mumbai’s Municipal Expenditures And Urban Poverty: Infrastructure, Education, And Public Health Expenditures

The goal of this thesis is to compare certain public expenditures and poverty in Shanghai and Mumbai. These two cities are often compared in the West and especially in India; however, these comparisons focus on surface level distinctions while ignoring the underlying reasons responsible for these easily observable differences. Municipal public expenditure decisions and abilities are the unseen causes of the more discernable urban necessities like infrastructure, education, electricity, and health. Without adequate funds devoted to certain public expenditures the demand for the necessities essential for urban life will exceed their supply, thus affecting a city’s ability to reduce poverty, as can be seen in Mumbai and other developing country cities.This thesis places Shanghai and Mumbai’s specific situations in the broader context of the urbanization problems that all developing countries face, that is, municipal finance and urban poverty. As developing countries urbanize their cities’ populations often grow faster than their financial resources and public service and infrastructure capacities, which leads to tough public expenditure decisions. Different expenditure decisions will result in different effects on people’s livelihoods and poverty. Past research has shown that increasing spending in certain sectors, such as education, infrastructure, and health, can lead to a decline in poverty.Keeping in mind this larger context, Shanghai and Mumbai’s public expenditures in education, health, and infrastructure are examined, followed by a look at poverty in both cities. After analyzing both Shanghai and Mumbai’s public expenditure and poverty situations individually, both cities are compared to better understand the expenditure differences that cause the more noticeable social and physical differences between the two cities. While other comparisons focus on the obvious distinctions between Mumbai and Shanghai, this is the first analysis to take an in depth look at the municipal spending histories that are responsible for shaping both the physical shape and the lives of city residents in Shanghai and Mumbai.