Basically, we’re in crisis and we don’t have the tools to address it. We need to radically empower people on the ground to address the issues directly, to be prepared for disasters, and be able to take action to improve our surroundings. At the same time, we need to make sure we stay accountable, that we do not create even more problems down the road.
More academically speaking …
Water management has developed during the last 150 years into what can be considered an invisible infrastructure. Even though water infrastructures represent an important provision of urban services, they are differentiated from the urban space and quite hidden in everyday urban life, partly because much of it is underground and in pipes, but also partly because it is a resource managed by professionals (Hoffmann & Quitzau 2025).
Around the world, and especially in the EU, cities are seen as vital to sustainable development, social cohesion, and economic development (Bulkeley & Broto 2013). However, urban systems and governance are entangled within current institutions and structures that on the one hand have co-evolved with earlier practices, while being surrounded by the pressures of new, complex, contemporary problems that require novel approaches (Lissandrello & Grin 2011: 226p). It is well recognised within research in innovation in public governance that traditional strategies and tools to overcome unruly policy challenges have proven insufficient (e.g. Agger and Sørensen, 2018). The burgeoning realisation that ‘business as usual’ will no longer do has prompted a search for alternative ways to organise, plan, manage, and live in cities.
At the same time, urban governance is becoming increasingly fragmented, and market oriented procedures and new networks of interest across the local, national and international levels are gaining
influence on urban designs and development. Citizens are excluded from the governance processes and instead of being co-custodians, become consumers (Gandy 2004). Paradoxically, with concerns around climate change, droughts, and flooding, citizens are asked to help to “save water” or “save the planet”, however, this is further hampered by the client-corporate institutional arrangement. Now
people need to be re-invited into the governance process, and everyone – citizens, municipalities and utilities – have great difficulty adapting to this. Water-sensitive urban futures demand a sophisticated and engaged community that extends to, and beyond the professionals in relation to their capacity for innovation and sustainable management (Brown et al. 2009).
In such dynamic and fragmented environments it becomes crucial to experiment with new professional and democratic dialogue tools that can operate within the complexities, controversies and uncertainties present in late modern societies, and this experimental approach is gaining traction in cities all over the world as a mode of governance to stimulate alternatives and steer change (Evans et al. 2016). The focus on infrastructures as core elements of urban design and societal practices is particularly relevant for sustainable transitions (Graham & Marvin, 2001). Systems that provide basic services, like water utilities, are an interesting area of intervention as these systems form part of the generation and circulation of elements of which potentially sustainable practices are made (Shove and Walker, 2010: 472).
We make use of the experimental approach in this project to enable different levels of citizen influence over decisions, illustrated by Arnstein’s (1969) ladder metaphor. This project focuses on the sixth rung, “partnership,” where citizens are empowered to negotiate and make trade-offs with traditional powerholders. Building on Arnstein’s model, Rocha (1997) added an empowerment dimension aligned with the concept of socio-political empowerment and “transformative populism.” This approach prioritises developing the people within the community before addressing the physical development of their neighbourhoods.
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