ABSTRACT
Did urbanization transform the way in which water was conceived, supplied and used? At first sight the answer to this question is a firm yes. Already since the urban take-off in the period 1000–1300 water was a socio-technical resource in many European cities. Other traces of water modernity (a desire to control the natural resource, the conception of water as a commodity, the development of expert knowledge on the nature and characteristics of water) all seem to pop up first in cities and to gain momentum over time. In this chapter, however, we want to look beyond the linear view of an urban water modernity. In European cities, multiple practices and conceptions of water coexisted for centuries. What at first sight appear as radical transitions between ‘socio-natural regimes’ or ‘Ages of Water’ (to use the terminology developed by André Guillerme) on closer inspection were gradual, complex and continuous processes, developing from the Middle Ages into the Modern period. Based on case studies from the densely urbanized Southern Low Countries, this chapter focuses on transformations of urban water systems throughout the ages. On the one hand, this enquiry reveals the simultaneity of water practices as the dominant feature, with a great deal of ‘bottom-up’ agency on the part of the users. On the other hand, we demonstrate how prevailing power relations (within cities and between cities and their hinterlands) and ideas on what the ‘ideal water’ set up should be, were embedded in newly constructed water systems. However, the agency of technology in stabilizing these values and power hierarchies in water systems proved rather limited in the end: changes in the social context sometimes led to a radically different appropriation of the same water system. As such, our historical analysis ends with a reflection on current debates about the sustainability of urban water systems and an optimistic view of the possibility of changing apparently ‘rigid’ and ‘hegemonic’ urban water systems to take account of evolving social and environmental needs.
