Beyond the entrepreneurial city: Municipal capitalism in San Diego

Over the last several decades the public sector has become much more innovative and entrepreneurial when pursuing downtown redevelopment, embracing characteristics previous restricted to the private sector. This article investigates this approach by reviewing a major redevelopment project in San Diego. In the course of this project the public sector acted in ways that exemplify the entrepreneurial approach to downtown redevelopment. However, rather than simply taking on an entrepreneurial role, the city's efforts are better described by the term municipal capitalism. No longer content to simply stand by after providing some resources at the outset, the public sector is now the lead player throughout the entirety of the redevelopment process, an actor as focused upon the return on investment from the project as the private sector. This article concludes with a discussion of the emerging role of the public sector as a capitalistic actor, and explores the consequences of this emergence.