Urban infrastructure and the essential services it provides – energy, housing, transport, waste management, and water – are fundamental for human and ecological wellbeing. As urban populations grow, particularly in the Global South, equitable and sustainable service delivery is increasingly identified as a strategy for addressing both environmental and socioeconomic development challenges. Existing frameworks for sustainability transitions often prioritise technological innovation at the expense of social, political, and organisational dimensions of infrastructure. Likewise, mainstream approaches to infrastructure development favour large scale, centralised, technology-driven solutions, overlooking the diverse service delivery arrangements that characterise many Southern cities. This thesis addresses this gap, combining empirical case studies with critical discourse analysis to explore how community-led and hybrid service delivery models contribute to inclusive and sustainable urban development. First, it examines how academic and policy discourses reveal a bias towards technocentric, Global North-focused perspectives on sustainable infrastructure. Next, it draws on case studies from 14 cities from across Africa, Asia, and Latin America to explore the delivery of essential services by community-based organisations, cooperatives, and informal service providers. Often considered “unorthodox,” such models can – given appropriate state support – contribute to improving service accessibility, mitigating environmental impacts, and empowering marginalised communities. Finally, these findings are used to propose refinements to sustainability transitions theory, including the Multi-Level Perspective. The thesis concludes that policy, practice, and academic theory must shift away from a narrow emphasis on technological solutions or economic efficiency, embracing broader approaches to urban service delivery that can benefit both human wellbeing and environmental sustainability in cities worldwide ... Read more

Rapidly growing cities in the Global South are characterised by high levels of vulnerability and informality and are expected to bear a disproportionate share of the costs of a changing climate. The confluence of climate change impacts, inequitable urbanisation processes, and under-development emphasise the need for accelerated urban transitions in Southern cities, yet mainstream theories of urban sustainability transitions have been shown to be insufficient for such contexts. This is particularly relevant with regard to urban infrastructure: While mainstream urban theory tends to regard infrastructure as static, centralised, and heavily engineered, infrastructure configurations in cities of the Global South are often heterogeneous, comprising multiple dynamic social and material flows. Drawing on theory from Southern Urbanism and empirical data of unorthodox infrastructures from 14 cities, this article assesses the potential challenges posed by applying a key transitions framework—namely the Multi-Level Perspective—in Southern contexts. The article closes by suggesting a set of theoretical propositions for future conceptual and empirical research that could advance transitions literature more broadly, and highlights the need for all cities to pursue inclusive service delivery models that are responsive to the complex and shifting landscape of climate impacts. ... Read more

Current approaches to the provision of shelter, largely driven by national governments and/or the commercial private sector, continue to fall short of what is needed to reduce housing deficits. The number of people without access to adequate housing continues to grow, especially in cities of the Global South. Increasing attention is being paid to alternative models for organizing land and housing delivery, such as those led by, or at least including, civil society. In this paper, we consider two national land and housing programs—the 20,000 Plots Project in Tanzania, and Basic Services for the Urban Poor (BSUP) in India—alongside community-led housing initiatives from each country. We explore the extent to which community participation in housing delivery can have social and environmental advantages when compared to ‘business as usual’ methods and find that, given appropriate state support, community-based, and civil society actors (including organizations of the urban poor) have significant potential to contribute to acquiring land, building homes and improving the quality of life of vulnerable segments of the population. This paper echoes calls for community-led housing to become a recognized part of formal housing policy whilst emphasizing the need for theoretical refinement of the process so as to prevent it from being captured by prevailing market-led narratives. ... Read more

The delivery of urban basic infrastructure services is often guided by the modern infrastructure ideal, which aims for technical innovation, economic efficiency and uniformity through long-term, centralized management approaches. In rapidly growing urban centres of the global South, however, heterogeneous infrastructure configurations have long involved multiple systems in varying degrees of coexistence. This paper explores how community-based enterprises – organizations that aim not to turn a profit but rather to generate human well-being – contribute to, complement or conflict with wider municipal solid waste management strategies. It does so through two case studies, focused on Luchacos, a local enterprise turning waste into briquettes in an informal settlement of Kampala, Uganda; and the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), a cooperative of waste pickers in Ahmedabad, India. Drawing on empirical data and policy analysis, the research finds that, given the necessary state support, community-based enterprises can contribute to a range of sustainability and development objectives. ... Read more

Basic infrastructure services – water and sanitation, waste collection and management, transport, energy, and housing – form the foundation upon which cities are built. Sustainable and equitable provision of services is key to combating climate change, eradicating poverty and meeting targets set out in international sustainability agendas. However, even as the language of the sustainability transitions literature is being appropriated by governments, social movements and practitioners, the concepts of sustainability and sustainability transitions remain ill-defined and often narrowly applied. We conduct a corpus-assisted discourse analysis of the sustainability transitions literature on urban basic infrastructure services to tap into prevailing representations and conceptions. Findings show that the delivery of sustainable urban services is discursively framed as a predominantly institutional and economic challenge, favouring a top-down techno-managerial approach to transitions that applies technical fixes to environmental problems at the expense of social dimensions of sustainability. While some studies, such as those with a focus on the Global South and/or water and sanitation services, engage to a greater degree with issues such as justice and equality, they still tend towards technical and economic solutions. An integrated approach encompassing all dimensions of sustainability and a broader understanding of infrastructure services not as separate, single-purpose technologies but as part of interconnected systems with multiple social, economic and environmental objectives is needed if we are to transition to a more sustainable urban future. ... Read more

Urban sustainability in low and middle income countries is rarely studied from a sustainability transitions perspective, though 90% of projected population growth between 2018 and 2050 will be in cities of the Global South. Using principles from grounded theory, this paper explores the relevance of the multi-level perspective (MLP) – a prevalent analytical framework in sustainability transitions theory that has primarily been applied in the Global North – for the study of infrastructure in the Global South. It draws on empirical data collected through case study research in the cities of Ahmedabad, India, and Jinja, Uganda, which have adopted innovative socio-technical approaches to service delivery that respond to the challenges presented by urbanization, climate change and inequality. Applying the MLP to these cases shows how niche innovations by non-state actors in waste management (Ahmedabad) and solar energy (Jinja) can increase access to services, reduce ecological footprints and empower socially excluded groups, in spite (or because) of landscape pressures such as poverty, informality and limited institutional capacity. The observed benefits are attributable not only to technological but also to organizational innovation. These findings may help to develop a more flexible understanding of the types of urban transitions needed and the ways in which those transitions could be achieved. Lessons from alternative socio-technical configurations in the South could be informative for any city looking for service delivery models that better serve contemporary environmental and societal needs. ... Read more

Improving the energy efficiency of existing buildings is a critical part of action on climate change. Retrofitting in particular provides benefits to the economy, the environment and society, as well as making significant reductions to operational greenhouse gas emissions. This policy brief looks in detail at the impact of retrofitting schemes adopted in Changning District, Shanghai, China, and highlights ways other cities can learn from Shanghai’s experience. ... Read more