The policing of Black debt: how the municipal bond market regulates the right to water

Abstract

Through a comparative analysis of Baltimore, Detroit, and St. Louis, this paper examines the emergence of financialized austerity urbanism as a mode of governance through which racialized patterns of infrastructure inequalities are produced, particularly regarding water and sewer provision. Following the 2008 financial crisis, Black-majority cities have employed disciplinary financial rules and routines around debt collection when issuing loans in the bond market to make up for budget shortfalls, a process which has led to mass water shut offs, housing foreclosures and wage garnishments to collect on increasing household water and sewer debt. This paper explores the interactions of race, municipal finance and urban governance by providing case study evidence on the implications of racism and racialization embedded within credit ratings in the municipal bond market. I demonstrate how there has been a financial deepening of Black-majority cities through pressure to satisfy municipal bondholders and meet their debt obligations. Punitive methods such as mass water shut offs and other debt collection practices are the outcomes of downloaded debt onto local spheres following the 2008 economic crisis, and what happens when residents are squeezed to their limits. The innerworkings of austerity urbanism, I argue, is driven by the logics of financialization and operates through urban geographies of racial capitalism.

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