000 02668nab a2200265 4500
999 _c11527
_d11527
003 OSt
005 20210316125536.0
007 cr aa aaaaa
008 210316b ||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
100 _aRohracher, Harald
_945213
245 _aHouseholds as infrastructure junctions in urban sustainability transitions: The case of hot water metering
260 _bSage,
_c2019.
300 _aVol 56, Issue 11, 2019,(2372-2386 p.)
520 _aThe integration of infrastructure domains and resource flows such as electricity, heat, water and waste increasingly gains currency in strategies to achieve more resource-efficient, smart and resilient cities. While widely discussed concepts of a nexus of resource systems, such as energy–water–food, aim at a more optimised and integrative management of resource flows, this article investigates how infrastructure integration is accomplished through the establishment of new interfaces and junctions between formerly separated systems. In particular, it focuses on households as an arena where different urban infrastructures intersect and different kinds of sometimes contradicting demands are imposed to co-manage these infrastructures, such as in the case of own electricity generation from photovoltaics along with the charging of electric cars and the management of household energy consumption. The installation of meters and the constant monitoring of resource use and consumption feedback to household members is regarded as a crucial element in such a transition towards more sustainable urban infrastructures. Empirically, the article studies the introduction of hot tap water meters in urban households in Sweden and the resistance and reactions of these households to such a metering regime. Our study shows how meters as new junctions between energy suppliers and users but also between separate infrastructures of electricity, hot tap water and room heating become contested political terrains which are linked to broader socio-political questions of urban change. In contrast to system management perspectives, such an ‘inside-out’ approach rather lends itself to context-sensitive and navigational governance approaches of infrastructure integration.
650 _abuilt environment,
_939154
650 _a consumption,
_945214
650 _aenvironment/sustainability,
_945215
650 _aresource efficiency,
_945216
650 _a technology/Smart Cities,
_945217
650 _a urban infrastructure
_945218
700 _aKöhler, Helena
_942998
773 0 _011188
_915499
_dsage, 2019.
_tUrban studies
856 _uhttps://doi.org/10.1177/0042098018815618
942 _2ddc
_cART