ABSTRACT
Given projected rates of demographic and economic growth in the urban global south, the everyday needs of people for housing, sewerage, waste or transport are likely to dominate city agendas for decades to come. But while expanding infrastructure generates production, consumption and distribution issues, infrastructure is also about everyday politics and large-scale political contestation. Major decisions about global finance, resource use and political organization are implicated in the steady expansion of dams, power stations, pipes, landfill sites and cables on which cities depend. The changing class profile of cities, moreover, establishes uneven demand for the physical reworking of the urban form. Understanding the locus of power, where the important decisions about urban infrastructure are taken, is always tricky. Characterized by informality, contested governance and huge inequality, the imperatives driving physical transformation in cities of the global south are even more difficult to understand and manage. In this context, it is critical to come to terms with the challenges and opportunities presented by urban infrastructure in underserviced and yet-to-be-built cities of the south.
