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The definitive version is available at:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-
2427.2008.00790.x/full
Published in International Journal of Urban and Regional
Research 2008 32(2), pp.436-451
‘Cold spots’ of urban infrastructure:
‘Shrinking’ processes in Eastern Germany and the modern
infrastructural ideal
Timothy Moss
Leibniz Institute for Regional Development and Structural Planning (IRS),
Erkner (Germany)
Abstract
This paper explores the unfamiliar, but increasingly prevalent problem of overcapacity
in urban infrastructure systems in regions subject to dramatic socio-economic
restructuring. Taking the case of water supply and wastewater disposal systems in
Eastern Germany as an example, it examines firstly how infrastructure overcapacities
have emerged since reunification in 1990, resulting from sharply declining water
2
consumption in the wake of ‘shrinking’ processes but also from infrastructure
expansion. Secondly, the paper analyses what impact chronic overcapacity is having on
the governance of water infrastructure systems. This empirical analysis is framed
conceptually in terms of the current debate on the changing relationship between
infrastructures and the localities they serve. It assesses specifically how far and in what
ways the phenomenon of overcapacity in technical networks resonates with the
‘splintering urbanism’ thesis developed by Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin. It
argues that the serious technical and economic problems posed by overcapacity are
intensifying spatial disparities in service quality and price and – more fundamentally –
are challenging the supply-driven ‘modern infrastructural ideal’ of universal and
equitable water services.
Introduction
One of the near certainties underpinning the provision of infrastructure services for
water, wastewater, gas, heating and electricity in the past has been the need to plan for
growth. Infrastructure policy and planning have rested on the assumption – largely
substantiated over a century and a half of experience in industrialized countries – that
demand for services will in general continue to rise and technical networks should
therefore be designed to meet higher levels of consumption in the future. Any over-
capacity (beyond a certain safety reserve) has generally been only a temporary
phenomenon, taken up as more consumers were connected to the grid and the
consumption of water and energy increased.
3
Whilst this is still the case in regions experiencing growth or lacking adequate
infrastructure, in other regions – those subject to processes of economic restructuring
and population decline – levels of consumption of water, in particular, are stagnating or
falling, sometimes quite dramatically. Utility managers accustomed to expanding their
physical networks to meet ever-growing demand for water are in some areas having to
confront an unfamiliar and unwelcome phenomenon: over-capacity in parts – or even
across all – of their infrastructure network. In serious cases the drop in consumption is
so great that it is causing major problems for the technical functioning and economic
feasibility of infrastructure systems. This can be observed in whole regions of Eastern
Germany and Central and Eastern Europe following the dramatic socio-economic
transition from a state socialist to a capitalist economy (on Eastern Germany: Koziol,
2004; Bernt and Naumann, 2006; Haug, 2004; Koziol, 2006; Birkholz and Pfeiffer,
2006; Tietz, 2006). In Western Europe instances of over-capacity and under-utilization
of infrastructure networks are less widespread but on the increase, for instance in inner-
city areas following suburbanization and de-industrialization or in peripheral regions
experiencing structural decline.
The theme of ‘shrinking cities’ is internationally under-explored (exceptions are
Oswald, 2005; Oswald, 2006). In Germany, by contrast, there exists a growing literature
on the causes, characteristics, consequences and governance of ‘shrinking’ processes,
addressing primarily – but by no means exclusively – the post-socialist transformation
of Eastern German cities and regions (e.g. Häußermann and Siebel, 1998; Hannemann,
2004; Weiske et al., 2005) [1]. ‘Shrinking’ refers in the first instance to two concurrent
processes – loss of population and economic decline – which have wide-ranging and
far-reaching effects on the functioning and governance of local communities and whole
4
regions (secondary impacts). Eastern Germany witnessed rapid de-industrialisation
following reunification in 1990, accompanied by a population decline of ca. 6%
between 1991 and 2002. In some medium-sized towns the population dropped by as
much as 30% (e.g. Hoyerswerda -29%, Schwerin -21%, Halle -21%), indicating the
huge geographical variations characteristic of ‘shrinking’ processes [2]. As many
commentators are keen to point out, ‘shrinking’ in Eastern Germany is not a temporary
phenomenon of readjustment but a “new normality” (Hannemann, 2004) of potentially
long duration. Population levels are predicted to decline even further between 1999 and
2020, by ca. 15% in the worst affected regions of Ostthüringen, Nordthüringen and
Altmark (BBR, 2003).
This paper explores the phenomenon of ‘shrinking’ in Eastern Germany from an
infrastructure perspective. We seek answers to the following questions: How has the
problem of overcapacity in technical networks emerged in the context of ‘shrinking’
processes? How is it affecting the relationship between water infrastructure systems and
the localities they serve? How is it influencing the way water services are provided?
Conceptually, we set our discussion in the context of an ongoing debate amongst urban
geographers, sociologists, planners and historians on the ‘splintering urbanism’ thesis
developed by Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin in their eponymous book (Graham
and Marvin, 2001). The splintering urbanism thesis is developed around the central
observation that the current organizational, institutional, economic and technical
unbundling of infrastructure systems is reshaping social and spatial relations in cities
and the relationship between cities and their infrastructures (Graham and Marvin, 2001:
5
166ff). Today’s infrastructure systems, they argue, are selectively being rebundled
around new logics, technologies, social relations and – above all – new spaces.
The vast majority of examples cited in Graham and Marvin’s book relate to situations
where demand for infrastructure services is high. The issue is generally about how to
meet this high and growing demand for either basic or customized services under
changing institutional, economic and technological conditions. By contrast, there is very
little mention of situations of declining demand and use, beyond brief references to the
vulnerability of infrastructure networks to obsolescence in periods of social and
economic transformation and the problems that can arise from the path dependency of
infrastructure systems (Graham and Marvin, 2001: 215). In this paper we target this
knowledge gap. We are interested in discovering how far the phenomenon of under-
utilization of water infrastructures is exacerbating existing socio-spatial disparities in
service provision or even creating new ones; in other words, how far it resonates with
the splintering urbanism thesis.
The paper begins by summarizing the central message of the splintering urbanism
thesis: that the “modern infrastructural ideal” (Graham and Marvin 2001: 39) of
universal services for all is being undermined, leading to the emergence of “customised
enclaves” and “network ghettos”. These we then contrast with so-called “cold spots”:
those parts of technical networks where demand is weak and/or declining. This
empirical section on the consequences of ‘shrinking’ processes in post-unification
Eastern Germany addresses the nature, causes and consequences of the overcapacity
phenomenon. Subsequently, we reflect on the nature of the connectivity between
infrastructures and cities in the context of overcapacity and socio-economic
6
restructuring, drawing observations on the challenges this poses for infrastructure
governance. The concluding section assesses the degree of resonance between the
splintering urbanism thesis and the overcapacity problem in Eastern Germany today [3].
From ‘customized enclaves’ and ‘network ghettos’ to under-utilized
‘cold spots’
In their pioneering book “Splintering Urbanism” Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin
develop a powerful thesis on the emergence, institutionalization and current
destabilization of a “modern infrastructural ideal” of the integrated, networked city
(Graham and Marvin, 2001: 39). They coin the term “modern infrastructural ideal” to
capture the notion of universal accessibility which, they argue, guided infrastructure
policy and planning in industrialized countries from the mid-nineteenth century until
around 1960. This ideal provided a powerful rationale for a number of characteristics
which subsequently came to characterize urban infrastructure systems: large-scale
technologies, territorial monopolies of service provision, heavy public investment,
strong state regulation, supply-oriented infrastructure planning and, in many countries,
state (or municipal) service provision.
The ‘splintering urbanism’ thesis subsequently advanced by Graham and Marvin is that
the modern infrastructural ideal and the policies which it has generated are today being
undermined by a combination of various forces for change. These range from trends
towards liberalisation and privatisation to uneven urban development in the context of
globalisation, from a loss of trust in urban and infrastructure planning to
7
environmentalist critiques of infrastructure policy (Graham and Marvin, 2001: 90-136).
The central argument of the splintering urbanism thesis is that we are experiencing
today, as a consequence of these challenges, a general shift away from standardized and
territorially integrated infrastructures to ones more fragmented and spatially
differentiated. Infrastructure managers, the authors argue, are planning and operating
their technical networks with far greater socio-spatial selectivity than in the past. This is
expressed, for instance, in spatial differentiation in the quality, variety and cost of
services, investment levels, employment conditions and technological innovation.
Commercially lucrative areas and consumers are benefiting from improved services –
often packaged to meet their particular service needs – whilst less valuable areas and
captive customers are provided merely with the basic level of service as required by
law. The cumulative impact of these differences is the emergence of what Graham and
Marvin term “premium network spaces” (also “customised enclaves”) and marginalized
spaces of infrastructure networks (“network ghettos”) (Graham and Marvin, 2001: 289;
also Graham, 2000; Guy et al., 1997; for a critique, Coutard, 2002). They develop the
notion of “infrastructural by-pass” – local, glocal and virtual – to illustrate the way in
which infrastructure managers are by-passing less lucrative places and social groups in
their quest to provide more profitable, tailor-made services for select customers
(Graham and Marvin, 2001: 170-171). Thus the trend towards more fragmented and
differentiated infrastructures is a distinctly political process. It is about “the dominant
practices of the powerful, in their attempts to construct, manage and regulate
secessionary and premium network and urban spaces” (Graham and Marvin, 2001:
384).
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If Graham and Marvin have raised awareness of the existence of premium and
marginalized network spaces, what do we know about under-utilized network spaces? In
their book there is no explicit reference to the impact of urban or regional ‘shrinking’
processes on infrastructure systems. This may be explained in part by the authors’ focus
on the Anglo-Saxon world and, to a lesser extent, developing countries. As they
themselves concede (Graham and Marvin, 2001: 385) the book does not explore
experiences in towns and cities of continental Western and Eastern Europe. Yet it is
here where cases of under-utilization of infrastructures networks is particularly
prevalent following major economic restructuring, negative demographic development
and resource-saving practices.
In many respects this paper explores the flip side of the splintering urbanism narrative.
Firstly, it is a story of the cold spots of declining or lost consumption, rather than the
“premium network spaces” or new consumption spaces of growth, exploring
infrastructure development in the context of urban decline rather than growth. Secondly,
the “infrastructural by-passing” here is not so much an act of deliberation by
infrastructure managers providing customized services to select customers and
territories at the expense of others, but rather an unwelcome necessity to traverse areas
of under-utilization in order to reach other consumers. Thirdly, the utility companies in
our story are not the agenda setters, creating new services and forging new partnerships,
but – in the first instance at least – victims of forces of economic restructuring and
urban change largely beyond their control. Fourthly, the changing relationships between
service provider and service user – a key dimension of the splintering urbanism thesis –
is modified by the additional problem of the absence of consumers and how utility
companies respond to this. Sensitised to these core issues of recent research on the
9
relationship between infrastructure and urban systems we now examine how ‘shrinking’
processes in Eastern Germany have helped create a chronic overcapacity problem for
water infrastructures.
From the universalization drive to the overcapacity problem: Water
infrastructures in a ‘shrinking’ Eastern Germany
Regardless of the extent to which utility services for water and wastewater are – or have
ever been – universal in Germany, the modern infrastructural ideal resonates powerfully
with traditions of infrastructure policy and planning there. The objectives of maximising
connection to the technical networks, providing a reliable, safe and affordable service
and using infrastructure investments to minimize intra- and interregional disparities
have acted as a guiding ethos (Leitbild) of infrastructure planning and regional
economic policy for generations. The logic of ‘build-and-supply’, based on political
aspirations to connect everyone to the technical networks and to support economic
growth, has been a powerful motif of infrastructure development from the Kaiserreich
to the present day. It has, not surprisingly, been interpreted and practiced in rather
different ways during the course of Germany’s turbulent history. In the late nineteenth
century hygiene and public health were the principal justifications for infrastructure
expansion. During the 1920s the argument shifted to infrastructures as instruments of
integrated city planning. Following the Second World War urban infrastructures were
heralded as pillars of post-war reconstruction. During the years of political division
supply-oriented infrastructure policies and the goal of universalization were
characteristic for both regimes – East and West – albeit with different points of
10
emphasis. Whilst in West Germany, generally speaking, the focus lay on levels of
connectivity, environmental quality and accountability to municipal authorities, in East
Germany it was on low service charges and the pursuit of state planning goals to raise
production and meet the chronic housing crisis (for a comparison of water services in
West and East Berlin see Bärthel, 1997).
The reality of infrastructure service provision in East Germany deviated in other
respects, however, markedly from the rhetorical goal of universalization (Markmiller,
1991; Roscher, 1993: 15-17, 24-27; Runge, 1994a: 434-438; Gruneberg, 1998).
Connectivity to public drinking water and public sewers did increase during the ca. 40
years of state-socialist rule but only at very modest levels, particularly in comparison
with West Germany. In 1987 less than 57% of the population of the German
Democratic Republic (GDR) was connected to public sewage treatment plants,
compared with 89.7% for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) (Gruneberg, 1998:
45). Such overall figures hid huge variations between localities, with connection to
public sewers ranging even between major cities from 94% for East Berlin to just 48%
for Frankfurt/Oder (Gruneberg, 1998: 44). The quality of the physical infrastructure in
East Germany was generally very poor, with – for instance – over half the water mains
older than the 40-50 years for which they were originally designed, resulting in frequent
pipe bursts and considerable losses through leakage (Markmiller, 1991: 10). Water
quality was also poor: in 1990 over 9 million people (i.e. ca. 60% of the East German
population) used drinking water which continuously or repeatedly exceeded the limits
for pollutants set by the (West German) Drinking Water Ordnance. The state of the
sewer network was, according to a study conducted for the Federal Environment
Ministry in 1991, roughly comparable with the pre-war situation (Gruneberg, 1998: 45-
11
46). Of the wastewater collected in public sewers only 52% was treated mechanically
and biologically; the rest received only mechanical treatment (36%), or was discharged
into rivers without any treatment at all (12%).
Revelations of the dire state of the water supply and wastewater disposal systems
following reunification in 1990 were highly instrumental behind the subsequent pursuit
of the ‘extend-and-supply’ logic with renewed vigour. What Eastern Germany needed,
it was widely held by infrastructure planners and funding agencies at the time, was
heavy investment in the infrastructure to bring it ‘up to speed’ with European standards
(so-called nachholende Modernisierung) as quickly as possible. Substantial funding
programmes were launched and approval procedures for network expansion fast-tracked
in order to enable service standards to meet those of Western Germany and to provide a
solid foundation for the economic growth widely anticipated in the early 1990s. The
pressure to act drowned critical voices calling into question the economic feasibility of
transposing technical and organizational models from Western Germany – with its
higher population density, legacy of strong local self-government and economic
prowess – onto the Eastern German context (Runge, 1994b). The historical opportunity
of exploring the viability of alternative small-scale and decentralized systems of
wastewater treatment and disposal was also overlooked in the initial post-reunification
euphoria. State funding agencies distributed generous subsidies for municipal
water/wastewater infrastructure investment programmes without adequately checking
their economic viability (Halbach, 1997: 6). Less scrupulous planning and engineering
consultants encouraged inexperienced local decision-makers to build unnecessarily
large infrastructure plant in order to inflate their own fees (Geiler 2006: 9).
12
The initial result of this unparalleled level of infrastructure expansion in post-war
Germany was to improve substantially the water/wastewater infrastructure in terms of
the classic indicators of the modern infrastructural ideal: levels of connectivity to the
public networks, length of pipelines and sewers, levels of capital investment and water
quality. Since reunification in 1990 some €50 billion have been invested in water supply
and wastewater disposal and treatment systems in the five new federal states (BGW,
2004: 3); statistically, this amounts to over €3,000 per inhabitant. This level of funding
led to a major rise in the capacity of the water supply and sewer networks. According to
the official statistics, the length of the sewer network in the new federal states and
Berlin grew between 1998 and 2004 from 67,896 km to 93,117 km – an increase of
37.1% in just six years (see Table 1). Consequently, the proportion of the population of
Eastern Germany connected to public sewers rose sharply from ca. 73% in 1989
(Gruneberg, 1998: 44; Roscher, 1993: 16) to between 82.6% (Brandenburg) and 91.5%
(Thuringia) by the end of 2004 [4]. The figures for connection to the public water
supply were less dramatic, but nonetheless significant, increasing from 93% (Roscher,
1993: 16) to 99%.
[Insert Table 1 ca. here]
There is no disputing the significant benefits of this massive investment in public
infrastructures. Private households, the business sector and public administration in
Eastern Germany today enjoy a very high level and quality of water services provided
by state-of-the-art technology. The quality of surface water and groundwater has
13
improved immensely as ever more communities have been connected to technologically
advanced networks since 1990. These benefits have come at a price, however. The high
level of state subsidies for water infrastructure investments will burden state budgets for
decades to come. The additional investment costs must be borne by local communities,
tying them, too, to a long-term financial commitment. The problem of high
infrastructure debt would not have become such a contentious issue, however, if the
levels of consumption of water had approached the predictions formulated in the early
1990s.
The irony is that, just as East Germany’s water infrastructures were being extended to
meet the anticipated growth in demand following economic recovery, the actual level of
water consumption in Eastern Germany collapsed dramatically, stabilising today at a
figure 40% lower than in 1990 (see Figure 1). As Table 2 illustrates, water consumption
in the new federal states and Berlin dropped from 1,345 million m3 to 794 million m3
(i.e. by 41%) between 1991 and 2004 (Statistisches Bundesamt, 1994, 1999, 2001,
2003, 2005), and from 1990 by over 50% on the basis of the less detailed and reliable
data for that year (BGW, 2005). This decline is, as Table 2 shows, very similar across
all five of the new federal states. These figures also reveal that the main drop in
consumption occurred before 1995, i.e. in the immediate post-reunification phase. What
the aggregated figures for the six states conceal are the huge intraregional disparities
within the overall rate of decline. In peripheral and structurally weak ‘shrinking regions’
of Eastern Germany water consumption has dropped by over 60% since the early 1990s,
with some communities registering daily consumption rates of just 80 litres per person.
The average for all the new federal states (i.e. excluding Berlin) stood at just 94 litres in
2004, compared with 142 litres in 1990 (BGW, 2005: 12). The areas hardest affected
14
by this dramatic drop in water consumption are today the ‘cold-spots’ of Germany’s
water infrastructure networks. At the same time, however, there exist pockets of
dynamic growth in Eastern Germany that are requiring network expansion, for instance
in new suburban developments. The often close juxtaposition of areas with sharply
declining water demand and areas requiring new infrastructure is posing a particular
challenge to infrastructure planners in Eastern Germany today.
[Insert Figure 1 ca. here]
[Insert Table 2 ca. here]
The dramatic and rapid decline in water consumption has been precipitated by a
combination of several factors, the relative importance of which has not yet been
satisfactory explained. One prime cause is the process of structural adjustment to the
economy, in particular rapid and dramatic de-industrialization following German
reunification. In the five new federal states water consumption by the industrial sector
dropped by 71% – from 290 million m3 to 84 million m3 – between 1990 and 2004,
constituting just 14.4% of total water consumption compared with 22.5% in 1990
(BGW, 2005: 11; Mensing, 2006: 11). A further contributory factor is the shift towards
more extensive agricultural production practices and an increase in self-supply by
industry as well as agriculture. The massive decline in population in Eastern Germany,
especially in peripheral regions (see above), has also had a major impact on water
15
consumption levels. At the same time leakage from water mains and sewers – a major
problem in the German Democratic Republic – has been substantially reduced as a
consequence of the infrastructure investment programmes. Particularly significant is
also the sharp increase in prices for water supply and charges for wastewater collection
and treatment. Having paid only a nominal fee in GDR times, many consumers in
Eastern Germany now have to pay charges well in excess of those of their West German
compatriots – a direct legacy of the high investment costs (see below). Finally,
technological improvements – especially water-saving appliances – have contributed
further to the decline in water consumption.
What have been the consequences of this dramatic drop in water consumption for the
way water infrastructure systems are managed? What at first sight appears highly
beneficial in environmental terms – reducing pressure on regional water resources – is
from an infrastructure manager’s perspective highly problematic (on the technical
aspects see Koziol, 2006). The immediate problems prompted by the combination of
expanding networks and declining consumption are technical and economic.
Overcapacity in the technical networks means that they are under-used; that is, too little
water and wastewater flows through the pipes and sewers. This raises problems of
technical functionality. In the water supply system the reduced through-flow and the
longer time it takes to distribute water from the waterworks to the consumer causes the
water temperature to rise, encouraging bacteria, and deposits to build up on the water
pipes. The consequences for sewers are increased blockages, corrosion of the drains and
foul smells. Sewage treatment plants operating well below capacity – sometimes as low
as 40% – do not perform to standard.
16
In order to maintain legally binding standards for water supply and wastewater disposal
as well as to secure the functionality of the systems technical interventions are required.
These include flushing water through the water mains and sewers – euphemistically
termed “artificial consumption” – and retrofitting distribution pipes so they have a
smaller diameter (Koziol et al., 2006: 50-53). In areas where the quality of drinking
water is in danger of falling below the required norms, chlorinating the public water
supply is currently under discussion – a solution unfamiliar in Germany and
consequently a highly contentious issue (Koziol, 2004). In order to reduce the capacity
of their technical networks, utilities are taking wells out of use. In larger conurbations
they are closing down waterworks and sewage treatment plants surplus to requirements.
In Berlin the local utility has taken six waterworks and two sewage treatment plants out
of operation since reunification, requiring a major redirection of wastewater flows
across the city (Moss, 2003: 522-523). In towns suffering from severe ex-migration,
where surplus housing is being demolished, water and wastewater utilities are trying to
ensure that the programme funding demolition and urban regeneration considers the
impacts on the technical operation of the remaining infrastructure. They are keen for
demolition to occur at end-points of water mains or sewers, rather than in the middle, so
that they may stop operating them and thus reduce the dimensions and increase the
compactness of their network as a whole (Koziol, 2006: 387-393).
There are, however, technical limits to physically down-scaling or re-ordering water and
sewer networks. For several reasons capacities cannot simply be reduced in tune with
annual consumption figures. Firstly, although total water use has declined, the drop in
peak use (in summer months) is far less pronounced. Secondly, heavy rainstorms –
increasing in frequency and intensity in the wake of climate change – demand high
17
capacity in sewers transporting rainwater. A third argument against downscaling is that
fire regulations stipulate the availability of minimum amounts of water (based on
population density) to extinguish fires, requiring the retention of high-diameter mains
piping particularly in areas of high-rise apartment blocks.
A further problem requiring technical solutions arises from the recent increase in
groundwater levels. As water consumption decreases and less groundwater is abstracted,
groundwater levels are rising. Though environmentally highly beneficial, the
consequence is that in areas where groundwater levels are rising close to the surface
property that was originally dry is now prone to damp or even flooded cellars. In
response to this problem groundwater levels are having to be lowered artificially,
raising controversial issues of responsibility and financial liability between utilities,
residents and local planning authorities (Lünser and Haeder, 1998).
If the technical problems are unfamiliar but at least manageable, the economic
consequences of infrastructure overcapacity and declining water consumption are far
more challenging. The principal problem is that, as water consumption declines
dramatically, so does the revenue from water and wastewater charges. This poses water
and wastewater utilities with a dilemma. They need to finance debts for their
infrastructure investments since the 1990s, yet opportunities to cut costs are limited by
the high level of fixed costs, estimated at between 75% and 85% for the wastewater
sector (DWA and BGW, 2005: 3). In order to offset the shortfalls incurred from
declining consumption, they see no alternative to increasing sharply the unit charges.
Since the mid-1990s charges for water and wastewater have increased dramatically in
most municipalities of Eastern Germany, in many cases well exceeding those in
18
Western Germany. In the GDR households paid just 40 (East German) pfennigs per m3
for water and 35 pfennigs per m3 for wastewater – a negligible cost. Tenants of state or
cooperative-owned flats paid no charges for water services at all (Runge 1994a: 435).
Piped water today costs an average €2.15 per m3 in the new federal states, 16% more
than in Germany as a whole (€1.85) (BBU, 2007). The difference is even greater – 25%
– in the case of sewage disposal, which costs an average €2.87 per m3 in the new federal
states compared with €2.28 nationally (DWA and BGW, 2005: 2-3) [5]. These average
figures conceal even wider price differentiation at the local level. Even within the state
of Brandenburg the combined rainwater and sewage charge per m3 ranges between
€2.40 and €5.00 (BBU, 2007). Utilities are also trying to raise and stabilise their
revenues by restructuring their tariff system, combining the existing consumption-
based, metered charge with a flat-rate charge (DWA and BGW, 2005). They have also
increased fees sharply for first-time connections of properties to the water supply or
sewer networks.
High charges for utility services have today become a major political issue in Eastern
Germany, commonly referred to as a “second rent” by virtue of their sheer scale.
Especially the charges for water and wastewater services are placing a huge financial
burden on consumers (Haug, 2004; Schiller and Siedentop, 2005). Price increases are
generally highest in those municipalities where water consumption has declined fastest
and over-capacity in the networks is the greatest – in other words in areas generally
worst affected by de-industrialization and ex-migration. One model calculation suggests
that a decrease in settlement density of 1% leads to an increase in costs for wastewater
services of 1% (BBR, 2006). Moreover, today’s charges are likely to increase even
further in the future, as the population of some regions continues to decline and new
19
investment and running costs emerge to cope with the technical problems referred to
above. One commentator anticipates that wastewater charges could nominally double
between 2006 and 2020 in areas worst affected by ex-migration (Oelmann, 2006: 8).
Water consumers in these ‘cold spots’ see themselves trapped in a negative spiral of
ever-increasing service charges. As they try to save water in an effort to reduce their
water/wastewater bills, the municipal utility responds by increasing the charge per m3 to
shore up its revenue. Not content to accept this situation of dependency, many
consumers are resorting to technical and political alternatives. Those with their own
gardens are reactivating or drilling new wells for water used for non-drinking purposes,
although this practice is increasingly being prohibited by the authorities. Others in
sparsely populated areas are challenging in the courts obligatory connections to the
mains water and – in particular – the public sewer system. This applies especially to
residents of communities threatened with connection to the sewage treatment plant of a
neighbouring municipality which is operating well below capacity. They are,
understandably, unwilling to share the financial cost of ill-planned investments by other
communities and argue that decentralized wastewater treatment and re-use systems
would be much more cost-effective. There is also continuous public protest against the
high water/wastewater charges in many regions of Eastern Germany. This ranges from
public meetings, petitions to protest marches and, in some instances, even hunger
strikes.
Overcapacity problems and the modern infrastructural ideal
20
Beyond the immediate technical and economic problems, overcapacity in many water
and wastewater networks of Eastern Germany is posing a fundamental challenge to
traditional expectations and conventional practices of infrastructure development. The
modern infrastructural ideal with its goal of universal service and its ‘extend-and-
supply’ logic is being seriously undermined. On the basis of our empirical analysis
above we can identify five distinct but interrelated challenges that we elaborate here.
Firstly, water consumption is not following an ever-upward curve or stagnating at a
high level. This conventional assumption of water engineers has been completely
dashed in the case of Eastern Germany. They can no longer expect, as they did in the
past, that water consumption levels will, in the course of time, rise to take up the excess
capacity of extended infrastructures. Water consumption has become much harder to
predict. This is due not only to the sharp drop in water consumption generally in the
wake of the unique reunification experience, but also – and increasingly today – to
growing inter- and intra-regional differences in water consumption levels. In those
regions and localities losing a disproportionate amount of population, economic
production and financial resources water infrastructures are becoming increasingly
expensive to maintain for both utilities and consumers. Water and wastewater utilities
are today painfully aware of the truism that urban and infrastructure development are
inextricably linked.
Secondly, the infrastructure planner’s conventional image of the consumer – as a largely
passive, uninterested and compliant recipient of services – is coming under increasing
scrutiny. Consumers as a collective whole are becoming more unpredictable, requiring
closer analysis of the behaviour of specific groups in certain localities. Nor are all
21
consumers prepared to accept utility policy on pricing, choice of technology or
investment priorities. Non-compliance is a growing phenomenon, whether in the form
of protests and non-payment, clandestine use of alternative water sources or political
battles for decentralized solutions for wastewater treatment. Utility managers are also
having to come to terms with the unfamiliar phenomenon of the missing consumer.
Population loss and economic decline are a principal factor behind the overcapacity
problem, prompting some utilities to show growing interest in ways of attracting new
residents and businesses to their locality (see Moss, 2003).
Thirdly and closely related to this, overcapacity poses a challenge to demand
management. Conventionally, demand management is understood as a means of
encouraging consumers to use fewer resources in an area of high demand so as to avoid
having to extend the network. Although rather at odds with the logic of ‘extend-and-
supply’, this mode of demand management has been practiced in several German cities
in the recent past – such as Berlin, Hamburg and Frankfurt am Main – to improve the
efficiency and environmental performance of water and wastewater networks. In
Eastern Germany today many utilities, faced with problems related to overcapacity, are
pursuing demand management in the opposite direction. They are interested in
encouraging consumers to use more water, and are pursuing this objective primarily by
modifying their tariff systems to reduce the dependency of costs on water consumption
(see above).
Fourthly, the problems emanating from network overcapacity are creating new socio-
spatial disparities in water service provision and exacerbating existing ones. The
principal disparity relates to charges for water and wastewater services. As we have
22
noted, price differentials are growing dramatically in Eastern Germany, with
economically disadvantaged areas lumbered with heavy investment debts having to pay
considerably more for basic levels of service than elsewhere. Beyond the price issue
inter- and intraregional disparities are growing with respect to the quality of drinking
water, levels of technological innovation and expertise within the utilities. Some degree
of spatial disparity is structurally determined in Germany, where water and wastewater
services are provided, by and large, by municipal or inter-municipal utilities. What we
are observing today, however, is a level of differentiation in service and costs which
transcends previous post-war experience and challenges the notion, embedded in
regional development policy in Germany, that infrastructure systems should contribute
to reducing spatial disparities.
Fifthly, water infrastructures in some parts of Eastern Germany have become more a
liability than an asset. We are accustomed to view technical infrastructures as important
location factors, essential for attracting business and residents. This argument was,
indeed, instrumental behind the provision of such huge funds for investments in
infrastructure in Eastern Germany after reunification. However, what we are witnessing
in many peripheral regions of the new federal states today is a perverse reversal of this
adage. Excessive charges for water supply and wastewater disposal are not only
arousing protests from existing residents but frightening off potential new investors and
residents. Businesses, in particular, are increasingly wary to the risks (BBU, 2007).
There is anecdotal evidence of investors locating in certain municipalities only on
condition they build and operate their own water and wastewater systems, in order to
avoid the high and unpredictable costs of public provision.
23
Conclusions
In this paper we have investigated the unusual phenomenon of chronic overcapacity in
water supply and wastewater disposal networks and what impacts it is having on the
governance of water infrastructure systems, using the experience of Eastern Germany
post-reunification as an exemplar. The paper has been framed as a contribution to the
current debate on the changing relationship between infrastructures and the localities
they serve, in particular on the ‘splintering urbanism’ thesis of Graham and Marvin. Our
task has been to assess how far and in what ways the phenomenon of under-utilization
of water infrastructures resulting from ‘shrinking’ processes in Eastern Germany
resonates with the splintering urbanism thesis.
On the surface the parallels between infrastructure overcapacity on the one hand and
growing fragmentation and differentiation of infrastructure systems as described by
Graham and Marvin on the other might appear weak. Prominent in their story of
splintering urbanism are commercially astute utilities seeking out lucrative customers
and providing them with service packages tailored to their specific needs, exploiting the
dependencies of mass captive customers and by-passing those considered unprofitable.
Our story, by contrast, has been about utilities – and, indirectly, consumers – confronted
by the technical, economic and political problems resulting from serious overcapacity in
water/wastewater networks caused by a combination of rapidly declining consumption
and excessive network expansion.
24
A closer look, however, reveals a number of resonances between core themes
underpinning the splintering urbanism thesis, as summarized earlier, and the
developments in Eastern Germany today. Since the issue of infrastructure overcapacity
was not considered in the original splintering urbanism thesis, drawing out these
similarities can help further our understanding of the nature of splintering urbanism in
the very different context of ‘shrinking’ processes.
Firstly, our analysis of over-capacity in water infrastructures in Eastern Germany has
revealed in stark form the considerable interdependence of cities and their
infrastructures. That urban development depends on infrastructure development and
vice versa is a truism underpinning infrastructure policy and urban planning. The
relationship, however, is often taken for granted and rarely appreciated in its
complexity. This paper has argued the need to appreciate the two-way nature of the
relationship between urban and infrastructure development. While the splintering
urbanism debate has focused on how infrastructure provision – and, in particular,
infrastructure providers – can shape urban development in ways not previously
appreciated, we have highlighted here how urban and regional development trends – in
this case de-industrialization and ex-migration – can also substantially shape
infrastructure development and service provision. This is in no way intended to
downplay the role of utilities as powerful players in the governance of infrastructure
systems, rather to generate greater sensitivity for the way their strategies are framed by
spatial development processes often beyond their control. What we can observe in
Eastern Germany is how spatial disparities in socio-economic development are being
reproduced in utility service provision and how, conversely, growing disparities in the
quality and cost of these services are reinforcing socio-spatial differentiation.
25
Secondly, the paper has demonstrated the vulnerability of infrastructure systems to a
sudden drop in usage. Infrastructure planners and utility managers are familiar with the
difficulties posed by surges in demand exceeding network capacity. They respond either
by extending the network to meet the increased demand (following the traditional
‘extend-and-supply’ logic) or by applying demand management to avoid the necessity
for infrastructure expansion. Overcapacity in water infrastructures of Eastern Germany
has, however, taken them by surprise. The established relationship between the
components of an infrastructure system – the natural resources, the physical networks,
the stakeholders and the institutional arrangements – has become destabilized, offering
no ready solutions. As consumers either disappear or use less water utility revenues
decline, jeopardising the repayment of heavy debts for recent infrastructure
improvements. A vicious circle ensues, with utilities raising water and wastewater
charges to recoup lost revenue and consumers responding by using even less water or
not locating in that service area at all. Alternative solutions, such as downscaling the
technical networks or connecting neighbouring settlements, involve considerable
additional investment costs and are often politically contentious.
Thirdly, the case of overcapacity is revealing important aspects of path dependency of
infrastructure systems. The fundamental problem illustrated in this paper concerns the
embeddedness of infrastructure systems and their inability to adapt adequately to
consumption trends which buck the long-term pattern of continuous growth. This
embeddedness – we should note – is multi-dimensional, covering not only physical, but
also institutional and socio-economic dimensions. We have observed how physical
networks, once built, require a certain minimum through-flow of water or wastewater to
26
operate both effectively and efficiently. Since downscaling is often not viable
technically or financially, utilities in this situation generally feel bound to raise tariffs
whilst at the same time exploring ways of increasing demand – i.e. with two strategies
sending contradictory signals. In the interest of maintaining existing infrastructure
consumers are called on to pay higher tariffs whilst environmental considerations to
conserve water are jettisoned. This reveals the inflexibility of the institutional and
financial arrangements for securing adequate infrastructure provision. The strict
obligation for local households to be connected to public mains and sewers combined
with generous public subsidies for infrastructure investments in the early 1990s
provided little incentive for municipal water and wastewater utilities to consider
alternative solutions to large-scale, standardized technologies. Today, with the
investments made and the networks built, both utilities and residents (households and
businesses) are locked in to a sub-optimal situation which only grows worse as
consumers try to reduce the amount of (publicly supplied) water they use and as they
continue to leave the locality.
As the stakeholders tussle with this dilemma, the modern infrastructural ideal – as
interpreted and institutionalized in Germany – is coming under increasing scrutiny.
Debates have opened up around whether to modify the political goal of achieving
similar infrastructure services in all parts of the country and whether exemptions to
obligatory connection to public infrastructures should be permitted. Other ongoing
debates are on how far decentralized technologies for wastewater treatment could be
part of mainstream infrastructure strategies, what role private providers can play in
resolving some of the problems associated with overcapacity and how benchmarking
schemes could improve transparency of water service quality and costs across the
27
country. This recent openness to alternatives is, in itself, a welcome sign of adaptation
to changing circumstances. Had it come in the immediate aftermath of reunification it
may have been possible to avoid some of the mistakes made when extending and
upgrading the water infrastructures of Eastern Germany. Today, the trick will lie in
identifying what elements of the modern infrastructural ideal need revising and what are
worth pursuing under the very different conditions of Germany in the twenty-first
century.
Acknowledgements
I should like to thank especially Matthias Naumann and Markus Wissen of IRS for
conducting part of the empirical research on which this paper is based, as well as for
many stimulating discussions on the topic. I am also grateful to the participants at the
workshop “Placing Splintering Urbanism: Changing Network Service Provision and
Urban Dynamics in Cross-National Perspective”, held in Autun, France, on 22-24 June
2005 for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. I am particularly
indebted to two anonymous referees for their helpful suggestions on ways of refining
and substantiating the argument. Thanks are due also to Elisa Fischel for preparing the
figure and tables.
Footnotes
28
[1] See the online journal ‘Städte im Umbruch’ under http://www.schrumpfende-
stadt.de/magazin.htm, accessed on 15 November 2007.
[2] See http://www.bbr.bund.de/cln_005/nn_85554/SharedDocs/GlossarEntry/B/
Bevoelkerungsentwicklung__LRB.html, accessed on 15 November 2007.
[3] This paper is based on research funded by the Institute for Regional Development
and Structural Planning (IRS) and by the German Federal Ministry for Education and
Research (BMBF) and conducted at the IRS between 2002 and 2006. Previous
publications from this research include: Moss (2003); Monstadt and Naumann (2005);
Monstadt and von Schlippenbach (2005); Naumann and Wissen (2006).
[4] www.statistik-portal.de /Statistik-Portal/de_jb10_jahrtabu3.asp of the Statistisches
Bundesamt, accessed on 16 March 2007.
[5] Based on a survey of wastewater utilities in 2005, with responses covering 59% of
the national population.
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35
Table 1: Length of public sewers, the new federal states and Berlin, 1998-2004 (in
km)
1998
2001
2004
Berlin
8,813
9,100
9,330
Brandenburg
10,679
14,645
16,947
Mecklenburg-Upper Pomerania
8,067
10,770
11,750
Saxony
18,962
21,271
23,252
Saxony-Anhalt
10,638
15,118
16,884
Thuringia
10,737
12,398
14,954
Total
67,896
83,302
93,117
Source: www.regionalstatistik.de, accessed on 4 April 2007.
Table 2: Water distribution to end-consumers in the new federal states and Berlin,
1991-2004 (in million m3)
1990
1991
1995
1998
2001
2004
Berlin
-
275
233
215
206
206
Brandenburg
-
185
119
112
110
109
Mecklenburg-Upper Pomerania
-
142
93
83
83
84
Saxony
-
336
206
188
187
190
Saxony-Anhalt
-
222
134
122
109
108
Thuringia
-
185
120
99
98
97
Total
1,604
1,345
905
819
793
794
Sources: Statistisches Bundesamt (1994, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005); BGW (2005)
