Metropolitics

Urban Public Transit: A Choice Between Two Models

Arnaud Passalacqua & Philippe Poinsot & translated by Oliver Waine — 2025-12-02T06:00:00Z

Public transportation has a decisive role to play in any meaningful ecological transition. And yet key players in the sector continue to prioritize technical innovations that consume huge quantities of resources. Arnaud Passalacqua and Philippe Poinsot re‑examine past experiences in France in order to identify solutions that are more technically modest and available in the shorter term.
Urban public transportation is considered an important tool for public policies aimed at promoting a

- Essays / funding, innovation, mass transit, mobility, model, public transportation, resources, technical innovation, transport, urban technical networks

Underground Berlin: Where Infrastructure Meets Politics

Clarence Hatton-Proulx & translated by Oliver Waine — 2022-12-02T06:00:00Z

Water, electricity, gas: in Remaking Berlin, Timothy Moss presents a history of Berlin's infrastructure networks from 1920 to 2020, and shows how their operation has varied with successive political regimes.
For anyone interested in the history of cities, the case of Berlin is particularly rich. In less than a century, the German capital lived through a succession of different political regimes: the Weimar Republic, Nazi rule, the division of the city between two concomitant republics (one

- Reviews / Berlin, infrastructure, Germany, energy, history, networks, urban technical networks, utilities

Unlikely Inter-Class Cooperation in Urbanizing Rural Colombia

Sebastián F. Villamizar Santamaría — 2020-02-25T06:00:00Z

Sebastián F. Villamizar Santamaría examines a case of rural gentrification outside of Bogotá, Colombia, and shows how long-time peasants and former factory workers and upper-middle-class newcomers collaborate across class lines to manage fundamental resources, such as water, and pressure the state to provide necessary infrastructure and services.
“A new neighbor welcomes you; your neighbor, nature,” claims a billboard on the road between La Calera, a small town, and Bogotá, the Colombian

- From the Field / Colombia, Latin America, Global South, South America, rural, Bogotá, gentrification, rural gentrification, urbanization, suburbanization, rururbanization, water, urban public service, urban services, urban technical networks, utilities, infrastructure, social class, networks, water access

Private Infrastructure and Urban Government: How Vélib' Veered Off Course in Paris

Maxime Huré & translated by Oliver Waine — 2019-05-17T05:00:00Z

When the city of Paris entrusted its decade-old bike-share service, Vélib', to a new provider in January 2018, multiple problems ensued. Maxime Huré looks back on the opportunities and pitfalls presented by the changes of scale and operator that this switchover entailed, and sheds light on public authorities' mistakes, misgivings, and above all their growing dependence on large, globalized firms.
The Vélib' bicycle-sharing system, launched in 2007 in partnership with French

- Debates / bicycles, mobility, transport, public transportation, self-service, urban public service, Île-de-France, Paris region, Greater Paris, Paris, privatization, public–private partnership, municipal, urban services, urban technical networks, active mobility, Vélib', bicycle-sharing, cycling

Electricity in War-Torn Aleppo: A New Form of Urban Management

Youssef Diab & Abboud Hajjar & translated by Oliver Waine — 2018-11-23T06:00:00Z

In Syria, electricity is one of the sectors most adversely affected by the war. New means of electricity production, provided by private individuals, are being developed to make up for the public sector's shortcomings. In examining the case of Aleppo, Abboud Hajjar and Youssef Diab have analyzed the creation of a marketplace for subscriptions to neighborhood electricity generators and the involvement of city dwellers in the day-to-day management of this sector.
Management of the electricity

- Essays / energy, networks, utilities, urban public service, war, Syria, urban technical networks, electricity, electricity generators, urban services, Aleppo

Recyclable City or Disposable City? A Century of Urban Waste in Naples

Sabine Bognon & translated by Oliver Waine — 2018-11-09T06:00:00Z

Inspired by the study of living ecosystems, research into the notion of urban metabolism seeks to break with the linear process—extract, produce, throw away—of resource consumption. This means reducing the amount of materials used, energy expended and waste produced, in order to conserve natural resources. Roberto D'Arienzo uses this concept to examine the case of Naples in Italy.
In Métabolismes urbains, Roberto D'Arienzo publishes the results of his PhD thesis (defended in 2015), retracing

- Reviews / urban planning, Italy, waste, sustainable urban planning, hygienism, urban technical networks, wasteland, Naples, recycling, urban metabolism

Rio de Janeiro: An (Inequitably) Connected City?

Francesca Pilo' & translated by Oliver Waine — 2018-09-21T05:00:00Z

The tangled webs of electrical wires, a symbol of the favelas, are also the sign of an electricity service that remains profoundly unequal and uncertain in Brazilian cities. Francesca Pilo' considers the varying quality of electricity distribution in Rio de Janeiro, and shows how this network contributes to dynamics of urban fragmentation that go beyond the simple dichotomy between shanty towns and prosperous neighborhoods.
Despite the universal nature of electricity provision, in terms of

- From the Field / inequalities, energy, networks, utilities, urban public service, Global South, socio-spatial inequalities, Latin America, Brazil, favela, Rio de Janeiro, urban technical networks, electricity, social division of space, fragmentation, service provision, distribution, urban services

Shrinking Networks, Growing Solidarities? How to Design a New Social and Territorial Contract

Daniel Florentin — 2017-09-27T05:00:00Z

Utilities operators in a number of European cities, faced with significant reductions in consumption levels across the networked infrastructures they run, are at the forefront of urban shrinkage management. Unlike numerous works describing a neoliberal process of territorial dislocation, Daniel Florentin demonstrates, through the case study of Magdeburg in Germany, that these dynamics of shrinking water and energy consumption can also foster new solidarities in the management of large technical

- From the Field / deindustrialization, energy, water, networks, utilities, urban public service, Germany, solidarity, shrinking cities, urban decline, Magdeburg, urban shrinkage, degrowth, shrinkage, urban technical networks, urban services

Cities transformed by hygienism: 100 years of local innovation

Sabine Barles & translated by Oliver Waine — 2015-03-27T05:55:00Z

Hygiene is a “battle”, and the “hygienist revolution” of the 19th and early 20th centuries transformed our urban societies. This battle, which has been charted by the historian Stéphane Frioux, spread from city to city, based on “applied science” that was taken up by a variety of public and private stakeholders, reflecting the inventiveness and competence of the local authorities of the time.
Hygiene and hygienism have long attracted the attention of historians – historians of urban issues,

- Reviews / France, innovation, environment, water, sanitation, waste, utilities, urban public service, hygienism, salubrity, urban technical networks, urban services, health

Free public transport: from social experiment to political alternative?

Maxime Huré & translated by Oliver Waine — 2013-03-20T05:59:01Z

In a work combining storytelling and reflection, a local councillor and a philosopher analyse the policy of free public transport implemented since 2009 in Aubagne, near Marseille. A resounding success with residents, this experiment has opened the way to a stimulating debate on the feasibility of policies that offer an alternative to market-led solutions in urban areas.
Free public transport appears to be something of a taboo subject both in society at large and in the world of the social

- Reviews / public space, public transportation, market, mobility, transport, urban public service, Aubagne, public policy, free, mass transit, transport policy, urban technical networks, urban services