Utilities, Land-Use Change, and Urban Development

Abstract

This paper explores the interrelationships between urban land use, resource consumption and utility service provision with a study of brownfield regeneration from an infrastructure perspective. Drawing on recent research into the spatial strategies of utility companies following liberalisation and privatisation the paper identifies disused industrial sites as “cold-spots” of infrastructure systems where energy and water consumption has recently collapsed. A case study of Berlin analyses first the challenges facing the city’s three major utilities as a result of shifting patterns of resource consumption and over-capacity in parts of their networks. The second part examines the responses of the three utilities to these challenges in the context of recent institutional changes to infrastructure provision, examining how the utilities are moving towards greater spatial differentiation in their network management and what interest they have in brownfield regeneration.