The grid is dead, long live the grid: Vignettes of para-water-networks in Nairobi

Abstract

After decades of chasing the universalizing promises of the ‘networked city’, urban/ spatial/ infrastructure planning and studies have shifted their attention to post-networked realities and infrastructures, especially for the Global South. Micro-grids and other off-grid solutions have become central to many practitioners, academics, NGOs, and others working on reliable, safe, and affordable basic services for underserved areas and populations. Also linked to propositions and discourses around smart cities or smart grids, off-/ micro-grid options are seen as viable options for infrastructural futures beyond the network. Although the splintering and fragmentation of urban infrastructures and spaces has been widely discussed, the focus on off-/ micro-grid options - as more than ‘infrastructural bypassing’ for the rich, but as potentially ‘pro-poor’ interventions - is a relatively new quality and direction. However, the urban-infrastructural realities of water supply in many African cities, for example, already include place-specific elements or iterations of off-/ micro-grid solutions: boreholes, water ATMs, water delivery services, and so on. These technologies are often far from deliberately designed and holistic (smart grid) solutions, but rather a response to the shortcomings of (non‑)universal water networks. In Nairobi, for example, boreholes have become a critical part of the city’s waterscape, not only for affluent gated communities, but also for middle- and low-income areas. Parallel to the proliferation of boreholes in Nairobi, a variety of small-scale water networks have emerged. Operated by property owners, businesses, and NGOs rather than actual utilities, these para-water networks often originate from one or more boreholes, and all have their own network of pipes that deliver water to outlets far beyond their individual properties. Throughout the greater Nairobi area, the pipes of these networks - without official licenses and regulation - run parallel to, across, or above of utility pipes, complementing and competing with the intermittent utility supply. Promising different qualities to different actors - such as financial benefits to property owners and improved reliability to water users - these para-water networks raise questions and concerns about equity, potability, governance, regulation, and responsibility within Nairobi’s waterscape. Drawing on three water user vignettes from three different areas of Nairobi, my contribution will present empirical examples of para-water networks, including a critical discussion of their origins, promises, and potential pitfalls in present and future. Ultimately, as Nairobi’s official water grid continues to struggle, I present these para-water networks as unregulated and incremental versions of an infrastructural logic and aspiration that has recently seemed outdated. Simply put… the grid is dead, long live the grid.