Infrastructure governance in the post-networked city: State-led, high-tech sanitation in Addis Ababa’s condominium housing

Abstract

Ethiopia’s mass-scale subsidized housing delivery programme has driven the rapid expansion of middle-income, mid-rise settlements on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, requiring the provision of infrastructure to newly developed areas. In the case of the Kotari housing project, established sanitation systems were deemed inappropriate for the site, resulting in the deployment of novel technology, a Membrane Bioreactor (MBR). Such decentralised technologies contribute to the heterogenous infrastructure configurations which characterise Addis Ababa’s sanitation landscape, reflected not only in material configurations but also in how they are governed. In this paper, we use the concept of ‘infrastructure interfaces’ as an analytical device to identify the key material connection points in the system. Working across scales, we scrutinise the governance arrangements at these critical junctures: the household, the block, the condominium, and the city. Our analysis challenges established understandings of infrastructural heterogeneity driven by the private sector, either through financialized elite infrastructures or informal survivalist practices. In Kotari, the state is the driver and the target is the lower middle class. Centring the state in these infrastructure configurations provides nuance to our understanding of how heterogeneity emerges. Our methodological approach accounts for governance at various scales, providing fresh insights into the relationality of infrastructure, particularly the human/technology interface and infrastructural failures. The case shows the importance of transcending binary readings of infrastructure configurations, such as on/off grid, state/private and formal/informal. Future work on the post-network city must go beyond simply denigrating or valorising alternative modes of service delivery.

Community Wastewater-Based Surveillance Can Be a Cost-Effective Approach to Track COVID-19 Outbreak in Low-Resource Settings: Feasibility Assessment for Ethiopia Context

“…There are two central wastewater treatment ponds that are connected by a sewage network, serving a catchment population of about 10% of the total urban population. In addition, there are 14 decentralized wastewater processing plants at different condominium sites [ 28 ]. Addis Ababa Water and Sewerage Authority (AAWSA) is the governing body of the municipal wastewater system.…”

From problematisation to propositionality: Advancing southern urban infrastructure debates

“…Likewise, what might be best at a city scale (and indeed what interviews with city officials might suggest is a good approach) often have fundamental contradictions with national imperatives or community benefits. An example of careful scalar consideration in Addis Ababa's decentralised sanitation systems, Cirolia et al (2021) show that high-tech and compact systems make a lot of sense at the local level where users get to experience a high-quality service which is also "greener" than many local alternatives. However, city officials dislike this technology for solid reasons.…”

Translating Globalised Ideals into Local Settings: The Actors and Complexities of Post-settlement Water Infrastructure Planning in Urban Ghana

“…They reveal that contradictions inherent in the implementation of the networked city ideal, reinforce the complexities. Such contradictions tend to foster uneven distribution and access to water for different socioeconomic groups across the geographies of cities (Coutard 2015;Cirolia et al 2021). In most cities of the Global South, especially Sub-Saharan African cities, urban water infrastructure/networks commonly "follow the people", often as a post-settlement network, where settlements evolve and are more or less followed by the provision of the large-scale water network (Andreasen and Møller-Jensen 2016).…”

“…Observing the experiences of network water provision, Cirolia et al (2021) indicate that the homogenous assumption of the networked city does not manifest in the cities of Sub-Saharan Africa. The networked city assumptions are less connected to the circumstances of most cities in the Global South to suit its translation.…”

“…In the literature, studies exist on the post-network infrastructure concerning the alternative infrastructural arrangements that evolved through residents' selfinitiative, shaped by the failure of the large-scale or network water infrastructure (Cirolia 2020;Cirolia et al 2021;Cirolia and Rode 2019). These studies have demonstrated how the post-network water infrastructure represents a heterogeneous infrastructural turn, an evolution as an alternative, normative ideal.…”