"Activists use space to advance political causes, a dynamic this book explores through stories of quotidian street life in Amsterdam. Residents there saw many changes in the late 20th and early 21st century. The rise of neoliberal governance, creative class economies, and quality-of-life boosterism brought new concerns about social justice, neighborhood character, and environmental responsibility"--

Examines how public water service becomes a political tool in Mexican cities and uncovers the politics of water provision in developing democracies

By analyzing water supply reforms in six developing country's capitals, this text provides a legal, economic and political examination of countries, tolerant of mismanagement of their water and sewerage systems for decades, that suddenly develop a thirst for efficiency.

Wasser ist eine globale Ressource für heutige Gesellschaften – Wasser war eine globale Ressource vormoderner Gesellschaften. Die manigfaltigen unterschiedlicher Wassersysteme für Prozesse der Urbanisierung und das urbane Leben in der Antike und dem Mittelalter ist bislang kaum erforscht. Die zahlreichen Beiträge dieses Bandes fragen nach der grundlegenden kulturellen Bedeutung von Wasser ( bzw. power of water) in der Stadt und Wasser für die Stadt aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven. Symbolische, ästhetische oder kultische Aspekte werden ebenso thematisiert wie die Rolle von Wasser in Politik, Gesellschaft oder Wirtschaft und dem alltäglichen Handeln, aber auch in Stadtplanungsprozessen oder städtischen Teilräumen. Nicht zuletzt stellen die Gefahren von verschmutzten Wasser oder Überschwemmungen die städtische Gesellschaft vor Herausforderungen. Die Beiträge diesen Band lenken den Blick auf die komplexen und vielfältigen Beziehungen zwischen Wasser und Menschen. Das Sammelwerk präsentiert die Ergebnisse einer internationalen Tagung in Kiel 2018. Es wendet sich gleichermaßen an Leser aus den altertumskundlichen wie mediävistischen Fächern und darüberhinaus an alle Interessierten, die sich über die Vielfalt von Wassersystemen im Stadtraum der Antike und des Mittelalters informieren möchten.

Research in the past two decades or so has questioned the sustainability of conventional approaches to urban water management. It has been suggested that a clear vision of the future is one of the key elements necessary for socio-physical change to instigate different ways of managing urban water. Somewhat surprisingly there has been little research on how visions are developed, politicised and, importantly, operationalised. Using Water Sensitive City and Urban Political Ecology as conceptual approaches, this thesis examines the way dominant visions of urban water management emerge and are used to justify certain ways of managing urban water. Archival and observational analyses are supported by interviews with key urban water practitioners in the case study city of Denpasar in Bali, Indonesia. It is an interesting case because the city has experienced huge political pressure to manage wastewater in a new way. The thesis is about the interpretation and materialisation of the socio-physical system guided by the vision. The wastewater system that is being constructed acts to separate water services based on race, social class and economic status. A centralised system is associated with wealthier populations and formal systems and institutions. It is considered a permanent solution underpinned by notions of modernity realised through technology. In contrast, a decentralised system is linked to underprivileged people and informal governance structures. This system is perceived as a community managed approach that is a temporary solution using “appropriate technology”. What is interesting is that recent literature suggests that the latter, decentralised approach is necessary to build resilient and more sustainable communities. This is in stark contrast to the discourse and imagined role of the decentralised infrastructure by all policy documents and stakeholders that were interviewed. Indeed, it was not something that the author had considered until engaging with the literature as part of the thesis. Overall, the thesis concludes visions are never neutral and reflect particular worldviews, ideological aspects and political agendas. Visions are used to legitimate certain agendas by particular groups through construction of certain narratives, irrespective of their underpinning principles.

A study of urban stormwater runoff that explores the relationships among nature, technology, and society in cities. When rain falls on the city, it creates urban runoff that cause flooding, erosion, and water pollution. Municipal engineers manage a complex network of technical and natural systems to treat and remove these temporary water flows from cities as quickly as possible. Urban runoff is frequently discussed in terms of technical expertise and environmental management, but it encompasses a multitude of such nontechnical issues as land use, quality of life, governance, aesthetics, and community identity, and is central to the larger debates on creating more sustainable and livable cities. In this book, Andrew Karvonen uses urban runoff as a lens to view the relationships among nature, technology, and society. Offering theoretical insights from urban environmental history, human geography, landscape and ecological planning, and science and technology studies as well as empirical evidence from case studies, Karvonen proposes a new relational politics of urban nature. After describing the evolution of urban runoff practices, Karvonen analyzes the urban runoff activities in Austin and Seattle—two cities known for their highly contested public debates over runoff issues and exemplary storm water management practices. The Austin case study highlights the tensions among urban development, property rights, land use planning, and citizen activism; the Seattle case study explores the city's long-standing reputation for being in harmony with nature. Drawing on these accounts, Karvonen suggests a new relational politics of urban nature that is situated, inclusive, and action-oriented to address the tensions among nature, technology, and society.

Urban water conflicts manifested first in Europe in the 19th century and are observed nowadays in various forms throughout the world; in particular, in developing countries. Main causes of these conflicts are characterized by complex socioeconomic and institutional issues related to urban water management. The debate about public water services ver