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An incremental approach to service co-production: unfolding the co-evolution of the built environment and water and sanitation infrastructures

An incremental approach to service co-production: unfolding the co-evolution of the built... INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 2022, VOL. 14, NO. 1, 162–179 https://doi.org/10.1080/19463138.2020.1818085 An incremental approach to service co-production: unfolding the co-evolution of the built environment and water and sanitation infrastructures a,b b a Federica Natalia Rosati , Luisa Moretto and Jacques Teller a b LEMA, Université de Liège, Liège, Belgium; HABITER, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgium ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY Received 23 September 2019 The literature is increasingly approaching the participation of households in the Accepted 20 August 2020 delivery of urban services through the lens of co-production. However, there has been no in-depth exploration of the relationship between incremental changes in the KEYWORDS urban fabric (urban typologies and morphologies) and the forms of adaptations of co- Water and sanitation produced water and sanitation services (WSS). The paper draws on three planned services; co-production; neighbourhoods in Hanoi to examine these incremental changes by considering the urban transformation; transformation of the neighbourhood at different scales and the consequent evolu- incremental infrastructures; Hanoi tion of the sociotechnical arrangements for the delivery of water and sanitation services. By exploring forms of reconfiguration of the built environment and embedded water infrastructures, the paper outlines the possibility of an alternate reading of service co- production initiatives as incremental spatial practices, with an emphasis on the role of technology in allowing transformation processes. Introduction reconfigurations that combine social and material activities (McFarlane 2011). The participation of communities in the processes of formation and consolidation of urban settle- While many urban buildings, especially in the global South, are auto-constructed and continually adapted – ments and related infrastructure is becoming even architecturally designed buildings are constantly increasingly important in fast-growing cities in the being tinkered with. This produces gradual but distinc- Global South. ‘Incremental’, ‘tactical’, ‘handmade’ tive changes in their layout, skin and appearance. Very world cities are rapidly growing outside and often, the issues raised by this continual repair and beyond planning processes, challenging the ability adaptation of buildings are actually completely ignored in the original design process. (Graham and Thrift 2007, of national and local governments to keep up with p. 17) the provision of integrated services to urban dwell- ers. The concept of incrementalism has entered As for the urban space, the reconfiguration of urban studies, referring to the improvisations, infrastructure networks occurs not only over the accretions and learning processes that charac- long term, but also through small changes and terises the production and consolidation of the variations, which, combined, cause their global urban space. Drawing on the concept of ‘intensive transformation. Offner (1993) suggests that incre- multiplicity’ developed by Deleuze and Guattari mental networks are characterised by a paradoxical (1987), the city is understood as the result of change in continuity, i.e. networks are built from a step-by-step process that leads to consolidation pre-existing networks and develop new configura - over time through new spatial additions and tions in a relationship of complementarity or CONTACT Federica Natalia Rosati federicanatalia.rosati@gmail.com LEMA, Université de Liège, Liège, Belgium © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 163 competition. In this sense, the sociotechnical pro- policies and strategies to deliver public services to cess of co-production of water and sanitation ser- an increasing number of urban dwellers. After vices (WSS) acts as an incremental learning process a period dominated by centralisation, liberalisation through which urban dwellers participate in mak- and privatisation, service co-production has aroused ing their cities, shaping their organisational limits interest both in the Global North and the Global and conditions of possibility (McFarlane 2011; South. A broad literature, mostly on public adminis- Silver 2014). tration, has conceptualised and delimited the bound- In Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital city, investments in large- aries of citizen-state engagement in service co- scale infrastructures contribute to extending the access production (Brudney and England 1983; Joshi and to centralised water and sanitation networks. Still the Moore 2004; Moretto and Ranzato 2017; Nabatchi limitations of centralised water networks (i.e. irregular et al. 2017). Most research addresses the motivations and unsafe drinking water provision, insufficient waste- behind service co-production (why do service users water collection and treatment) along with processes co-produce), its institutional setting (how do users of territorial reconfiguration (i.e. densification of built- and providers interact) and its benefits. Within Urban up areas, rural-urban reconversion) require citizens to South studies, service co-production is often seen as engage in co-production of water and sanitation ser- a way to overcome the dichotomy between formal vices, leading to pragmatic reconfigurations of techni- and informal approaches to urban planning and ser- cal devices and infrastructure systems (Button 2017). vice delivery (Misra 2014; Faldi et al. 2019). The litera- This paper analyses the coevolution of the built envir- ture refers to the collaborative dimension of service onment and embedded water and sanitation infra- co-production and its long-term benefits. The interest structures. In this perspective, service co-production in co-production of public services is underpinned by acts as an incremental practice. The paper explores the view that the engagement of users in some or all the following questions. How and why did planned the phases of the service cycle may bring double built environments become sites of service co- benefits. For some, co-production constitutes production? What was the role of incremental adapta- a service delivery model that may improve service tions of water and sanitation infrastructures in the co- efficiency and accountability by making better use of production of services? the available resources while increasing trust among The article firstly discusses incrementalism as the actors involved. Indeed, state and citizens have a theoretical framework to understand how, through different but complementary forms of knowledge, co-production, Hanoi dwellers can achieve improved which together can contribute to improving service water supply and sanitation by means of hybrid infra- outcomes (Ostrom 1996; Watson 2014). For others, structures and incremental sociotechnical develop- the move towards co-production as public govern- ment. It uses three case studies of planned ance and policy framing tool is a way of addressing neighbourhoods to analyse how urban dwellers institutional deficits by favouring the reconfiguration engage with existing spatial conditions, reconfigure of state-society relationships through the rise of new their urban space and seek to adjust and maintain the democratic institutions (Mitlin 2008). By contrast circulation of water on a very local scale to respond to some authors raise concerns about co-production increasing density. It concludes by outlining some initiatives as forms of co-optation, as vehicles for the theoretical considerations resulting from examining institutionalisation of inequalities (Jaglin 2002; the development of water and sanitation infrastruc- Cornwall 2004) and as drivers of socio-spatial frag- ture and the technical devices employed in incremen- mentation (Cabrera 2015; Moretto et al. 2018). tal development by stressing the place-based nature Literature on socio-technical systems generally con- of co-production and, at the same time, co- ceives service co-production as a decentralised, hybrid production’s path dependency on the dynamics of form of service delivery developed to bridge the gaps left urban transformations. by poor or absent centralised networks. In this literature, there are references to the adaptability of co-produced systems, related to the local capacity mobilised for deal- Co-production as incremental spatial practice ing with resources and technologies. However, there are For much of the past hundred years, governments major challenges in guaranteeing sustainable manage- have been experimenting with various models, ment of the system, maintaining service equity and 164 F. N. ROSATI ET AL. efficiency and ensuring water and environmental stan- Reading service co-production as an incremental dards (Faldi et al. 2019). In spite of a still blurred definition spatial practice, as opposed to a policy or a static and controversies over its benefits, co-production is gen- service delivery model, helps us to understand its erally mobilised as a policy tool for integration into urban origin, evolution and role in the transformation of planning or public services delivery schemes to improve Global South cities. Three main aspects allow us to service quality while promoting more horizontal govern- read co-production as incremental spatial practice. ance forms (Ostrom 1996; Joshi and Moore 2004; Mitlin The evolutionary dimension of WSS co-production is 2008). primarily linked with the role of the state and its The definition for this paper comes from Joshi and changing relationship with society. Governance dri- Moore (2004), which defines institutionalised service co- vers, as changes in the political environment at the production as ‘the provision of public services (broadly national or local scale, might trigger a decline in state defined to include regulation) through a regular long- provision (institutional deficit) and therefore engage term relationship between state agencies and organised citizens in co-production. Logistic or technical drivers, groups of citizens where both make substantial resource such as distance to the urban core, might also explain contributions’ (p. 31). This framework is appropriate for why communities, disconnected from networked our study, since it recognises the key role organised infrastructures, get involved in service delivery (Joshi service users play in the service delivery process, within and Moore 2004). Co-production might evolve as complex policy arrangements over a wide timeframe, in a substitutive practice (i.e. government retiring from which state-society synergistic relationships are being being service provider) or as an additive practice (i.e. continuously renegotiated. Moreover, we consider institutionalisation of self-help practices or conven- a number of intermediaries, such as community groups, tional service provision models supported by users) volunteering associations, NGOs and private companies (Bovaird and Loeffler 2012). Consequently, the rela- that might endorse different roles as co-producers and tionships between actors involved in service co- co-managers, thus contributing to negotiating the production and their long-term goals are constantly boundaries between state and society (Bovaird 2007). under negotiation. However, in this paper we step back from the more Moreover, as water and sewerage infrastructures traditional understanding of service co-production and (tanks, pumps, pipes) are embedded in the physical we approach it from a descriptive rather than a normative boundaries of the built environment, there is perspective. In other words, we do not focus on the a relationship between the form and structure of this collaborative dimension of co-production practices; nor built environment and the territorial boundaries of co- do we evaluate their benefits in terms of quality of produced practices (Ostrom 1990; Habraken and services. The focus is rather on understanding how ser- Teicher 1998). Dwellers may operate in different vice co-production develops. This implies exploring dif- ways with respect to their built environment at ferent types of co-production initiatives and their a local scale (Habraken and Teicher 1998; Silver 2014; evolution over time. In particular, we focus on the co- Moretto et al. 2018). Local factors, such as available production of WSS. As supply forms are part of the built resources or dwelling typologies, shape the evolution environment, it is relevant to include spatial considera- of the different co-production options, along path- tions in the observation of co-produced water and sanita- dependency trajectories (Monstadt and Schramm tion services (Moretto et al. 2018; Faldi et al. 2019). The 2015; Faldi et al. 2019). Changes in territorial config - way co-production is influenced by and influences the uration (form and control of the built environment) reconfiguration of the built environment and how it might require adjustment of some water infrastruc- evolves over time, in terms of space, technology and tures. This in turn may contribute to the evolution of involved social structures, has not yet received extensive co-production practices (Offner 1993; Habraken and exploration. In this paper, service co-production is under- Teicher 1998). Echoing Cornwall (2004), co-production stood as an incremental practice, namely a process in can take the form of ‘invited space’ (i.e. government which hybrid modalities of service provision, involving supporting bottom-up actions to increase urban den- state actors, service users and a wide range of intermedi- sity) or ‘popular space’ (i.e. bottom-up construction aries, are interacting in an evolving socio-political, techni- initiatives occurring outside regulatory frameworks). cal and territorial context (Joshi and Moore 2004; Ahlers However, the ‘boundaries between “invited” and et al. 2014; Faldi et al. 2019). “popular” spaces are mutable, rather than fixed. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 165 “Popular spaces” can become institutionalised, with Grounded in the idea that the co-production of statutory backing, and “invited spaces” may become water and sanitation services has a path-dependent sites for the articulation of dissent, as well as for nature, this paper draws attention to the relationship collaboration and compromise’ (Cornwall 2004, p. 2). between the evolution of co-produced practices and The evolution of the built environment may influence the processes of consolidation and transformation of WSS co-production and related infrastructures that human settlements. It does so by looking at the incre- keep ‘in-the-making, undergoing constant adjust- mental nature of the built environment and the role of ment and intervention, and in a permanent state of incrementalism in sustaining urban livelihoods through flux’ (Silver 2014, p. 788). processes of maintenance, upgrade and transformation Finally, the evolution of WSS co-production is also of WSS infrastructures (Offner 1993; Graham and Thrift linked with the unfinished nature of infrastructure net- 2007; Silver 2014; Button 2017) (Figure 1). works (Zérah 2000; Button 2017; Faldi et al. 2019). The adaptability of WSS infrastructures plays an important Between popular and invited development: role in the sociotechnical and spatial reconfiguration of Hanoi’s incremental growth co-produced water and sanitation services. The incre- mental development of infrastructures can take differ - The second largest city in Vietnam, Hanoi, is growing ent shapes. It can act as an upgrade of the existing rapidly and occupies an area of 3.300 km in the Red technical portfolio used in co-production (Moretto et al. River Delta (Labbé and Musil 2014). Urbanisation pro- 2018), or as a multiplication of supply systems and cesses in Hanoi are the outcomes of socialist related technical devices (Button 2017). It can be self- approaches and market mechanisms that characterise feeding, for example when co-produced services acti- the fluid and contrasting nature of state-society rela- vate some financial resources that allow to extend the tionships in space production logics (Geertman 2003; existing network and to include new dwellers (Cabrera McGee 2009; Tran 2015). On the one hand, there are 2015). Finally, co-production can be adaptable, as it large-scale urban plans, representing globally circulat- might rapidly evolve to cover the gaps between con- ing visions of modernity and characterised by con- ventional and networked infrastructures, revealing nectedness to centralised infrastructure networks a stop-gap nature (Zérah 2000; Jaglin 2002). (Schramm 2016b). The plans drawn by French INCREMENTAL WATER AND SANITATION SERVICE CO-PRODUCTION Co-production Co-production Co-production A’ A A’’ Consolidation Origin complementary concurrent ORGANIZATION Decline Initial development BUILT ENVIRONMENT EVOLUTION RECONFIGURATION Disappearance Transformation Consolidation Origin complementary concurrent Initial development Decline Transformation Disappearance INFRASTRUCTURE ADAPTATION Figure 1. Framework for analysing the evolution of co-production of water and sanitation services. Developed by the authors based on Offner (1993) 166 F. N. ROSATI ET AL. colonials supporting the image of a sanitary city, the localised alternative systems. Those alternative sys- dormitory settlements (KTTs) drawn with technical tems engage citizens at different scales in the produc- and economic support from the former Soviet Union tion and management of the technical infrastructure and the current masterplan that promotes the image for the delivery of water and sanitation services. This of neoliberal city development (Aimini 2013) fall into engagement involves economic resources (co- this category. On the other hand, and in contrast to funding), maintenance and repair (co-management) these planned forms of city development, urbanism in and planning (co-planning). They do not develop Hanoi is also produced on the local scale, determined against a lack of centralised water and sanitation net- by site-specific social and spatial instances, in works. On the contrary, they coexist and dialogue a pragmatic and incremental way (Kerkvliet 2001; with existing infrastructure networks (Rao 2015). Koh 2006; Geertman 2007). A number of policies This article considers three neighbourhoods adopted from the 1980s, in contrast with the progres- where current co-production of water and sanitation sive retreat of the government in the provision and services developed and transformed over time, maintenance of the housing stock, de facto invited rather than being planned in advance. These case and institutionalised unplanned and popular urban studies depict the chronological evolution of Hanoi growth (Cerise 2009; Geertman and Kim 2019). and they reflect specific visions and models of urba- The tensions between planning models and mate- nisation. They represent centrally planned urban rial improvisations that arise in the city’s incremental types connected to the municipal water and sewer- development emerge at different scales and deter- age networks. The planning and construction of the mine the way infrastructure is produced and reconfi - technical infrastructure were included in the initial gured and the ways that water and sanitation services design of the area and the building systems. are currently delivered to urban dwellers (Schramm However, co-production initiatives evolved as ‘small 2014). While expanding and transforming to sustain acts of design’ in line with the processes of urban and the rapid pace of urbanisation, Hanoi water and sani- infrastructure reconfiguration (Rao 2015, p. 41) and tation networks are leading to anguish over constant the changing relationships between the actors shortcomings, which have generated ingenious and involved (Figure 2). New Urban Areas French District Soviet Living Quarters Figure 2. The three models of planned urbanisation addressed in Hanoi. French District, KTT Soviet Living Quarters, NUAs New Urban Areas. Image produced by the authors. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 167 Reconfiguring the urban block: alleyway and the creation of new branches for both water households co-producing water and distribution and wastewater collection to supply the sanitation services in the French district new buildings. Regarding the sanitation facilities, each house on the new allotment was provided with The French colonial masterplans contained the first a septic tank connected to the combined drainage phase of formally planned urbanism in Hanoi. The system. To reduce the amount of wastewater flowing plans were implemented from the 1890s to the into the tanks, they now only receive blackwater, 1940s as the first spatial reordering of the traditional while stormwater and greywater flow directly into urban fabric to accommodate the colonial elite while the drainage system (Schramm 2016a). The distribu- building the image of a new sanitary capital. The tion of control over the sanitation infrastructure French District predominately covers the southern occurs at three levels within the area. The manage- areas of the Hoàn Kiếm lake. It is organised as ment of the primary and secondary lines of the drai- a series of isolated and grouped villas surrounded by nage system is the responsibility of the Hanoi gardens. During colonial times, the area was con- Sewerage and Drainage Company Limited. In the nected to the water distribution network and alleys, within the blocks, control over the tertiary drai- a separate sewerage and drainage system. French nage lines is in the hands of service users, operating engineers included co-production arrangements in through institutionalised resident groups: tổ dân phố the initial design of the technical infrastructure. (TDPs). TDPs are responsible for the territorial control Indeed, the septic tanks, on-site treatment technolo- of the alleys, narrow streets from 1 to 2.5 m width, gies, were first planned and installed in each plot in inherited from the road networks of ancient villages this area. The flat terrain and the low, dense morphol- and defined by formal groupings of continuous rows ogy of the district characterised by villas, originally of houses sharing common spaces (Koh 2006). inhabited by one or two households, allowed to oper- Each group is represented by a leader (tổ trưởng tổ ate with septic tanks (Schramm and Contreras 2017). dân phố) elected to represent the community and to According to the French planners, septic tanks mediate with the ward’s authorities. As the smallest required large spaces to operate effectively, as they branches of the Vietnamese political system, resident should be easily accessible. Requiring constant main- groups allow the government to maintain tenance and periodic cleaning, this technology also a widespread control over the territory. At the same required adequate hygiene. time, as self-regulating institutions, they guarantee to The redevelopment of this area dates to the the alleyway households a certain autonomy in the time of collectivisation (under the socialist housing management of water infrastructures and public regime), when the Vietnamese Government confis - spaces. Through a common fund, made up of contri- cated and redistributed the colonial plots and butions from each household, the TDPs co-plan, co- houses, either for public functions or to house fund and co-manage the alleyway space at group the families of public officials (Cerise 2009). The level (i.e. they improve shared space such as street progressive development (Turner and Fichter 1972) paving and green areas), allowing the evolution and of the French District consisted of a shifting of maintenance of technical services (such as the drai- territories generated by newly built dweller-driven nage system). Finally, at the scale of the plot, each housing units (Habraken and Teicher 1998). These household is responsible for the maintenance of the so-called tube houses (referring to the shape of the septic tank and the pipes connected to the drainage houses: tall and very narrow) occupied open spaces system. that were once the private gardens of colonial The distribution of control over the water infra- villas. As a result of this densification, promoted structure occurs at two levels within the area. The by the government through a land reallocation state-owned water enterprise, HAWACO, is responsi- plan, urban blocks were reconfigured around nar- ble for distributing water up to the water metre in row alleys overlooked by the entrances of new front of each house. At the scale of the plot, from the housing units and around the old colonial villas metre on, households are responsible for the con- (Figure 3). struction and maintenance of the water pipes and Water and sanitation infrastructures progressively any other devices necessary to ensure regular flows. expanded with the multiplication of technical devices To address gaps in service delivery (i.e. low pressure in 168 F. N. ROSATI ET AL. Figure 3. A French villa surrounded by tube houses in Hoan Kiem District (photo by the authors). the pipes that does not allow the water to reach upper production initiatives developed as additive prac- floors, as well as an often irregular and dirty water tices, since the government, by institutionalising flow), households complement the centralised net- previously informal resident groups (TDPs), recog- work. They ensure a constant supply of water by nised them as service providers. Co-production equipping their houses with water storage tanks operates here in the last phases of the water (both underground for storage and elevated to dis- cycle (storage and secondary treatment) at the tribute water by gravity), booster pumps, filter col- scale of the plot. This reveals the stop-gap nature umns and other devices to ensure uninterrupted of these co-produced practices of water supply, in water flow at sufficient pressure and to improve drink- which costs are shared among the households and ing water quality. Other adjustments in the water the water company, which keeps control over the network occur in highly dense alleys where plots branches up to the plot. have been subdivided or parts of houses have been rented. In these cases, several households, working with plumbers, configure a split water supply and Re-configuring the socialist condominium: share the devices they need to access water services. what remains of the collective water The case of the French District shows that an infrastructures in the Nguyễn Công Trứ soviet increase of the built environment density triggered living quarter the co-production of sanitation services that pro- The second phase of significant redevelopments and gressively extend from the scale of the plot (house- masterplans dates from the Soviet period. Between hold level) to the scale of the alley (group level), 1954 and 1975, the state played an important role in with on-site facilities (collection) under the control the provision of housing and basic services by provid- of households and tertiary branches (disposal) ing collective flats (khu tập thể, KTTs) to sustain rural- under the control of TDPs. In this case, co- INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 169 urban migrations and the reconstruction of the coun- with ward or higher state officers and relying on try’s economy. moral norms and customary rules, often see the head of the local TDP as central in promoting media- The case of Nguyễn Công Trứ represents the tion between groups of residents and local authorities first generation of living quarters produced by the (Geertman and Kim 2019) (Figure 4). Ministry of Construction after the Vietnam War. The As a result of these incremental transformations, the neighbourhood, originally a village settlement, is in water and sanitation infrastructures have undergone a historical area of Hanoi, which was converted changes that have altered the original configuration. into a cemetery during the colonial period. In Regarding the water supply system, from the neigh- 1960, after the end of colonial domination and bourhood’s inception to 1986, the government pro- during the Soviet period, the French cemetery vided water. Each family had to pay a monthly fixed was removed to construct social housing. fee, regardless of its consumption. Water was collected According to the original and centrally planned in two main water reservoirs in the neighbourhood and design, khu tập thể Nguyễn Công Trứ consists of pumped to each block. It was stored in tanks on the 14 housing blocks with four floors each, arranged rooftops. Water was then distributed by gravity on three allotments divided by main roads. The through two main pipes to the common kitchen and presence of public buildings, a general market, toilet areas on each floor. As reported by residents at a primary school, and a kindergarten reflects the the time, water was generally available, and some socialist way of producing residential areas at the redistribution practices were observed. time. Housing was considered a new social good, As also observed in other living quarters in Hanoi, and the notion of habitat was associated with col- co-production initiatives materialised as substitutive lectivism (Cerise 2009). The original flats (30 m ) on practices, since the government progressively each floor were organised around two common retreated from its role as exclusive service provider. spaces. Every floor contained a kitchen and toilets, The low rental rates (set below the level of actual accessible from a distribution space and shared housing costs) impeded the state housing agencies among eight households. When these large-scale from collecting sufficient funds for repair and main- developments were first installed, the state pro- tenance of the existing housing stock (Nguyen Quang vided for the water and sanitation infrastructure and Kammeir 2002). Residents regularly faced inade- and it covered maintenance costs. The state also quate water pressure, a choked drainage system and discouraged private housing and modification of poor septic tank maintenance. Moreover, the living the built environment through strict controls. conditions in the blocks were unbearable, given the Forms of incremental development in this area small size of the living space, which was often only started in the 1970s, with the loosening of the man- 2 m per person (Cerise 2009). agement of collective housing by the state. In this To address these deficiencies, Hanoi city administra- context, the collective housing blocks in Nguyễn tion developed a model of state-private cooperation for Công Trứ started to densify mainly through the occu- the upgrade of these collective areas in the 1980s. This pation of public spaces between the blocks and model, known as house repair cooperative schemes (Koh extensions of the flats, the so called tiger cages 2006), invited modification of the housing blocks. The (chuồng cọp). (Cerise 2009; Fanchette 2016). These government was responsible for providing building extended rooms, variable in size and function, are material and contributing economic support, while resi- generally supported by steel structures stretching dents contributed money and labour. Works included out up to 3 metres from the original façade of the repainting the facades, upgrades of the pipes and build- building. A survey conducted in 2007 by Hanoi ing individual kitchens and toilets. Collective spaces were Housing Development Company No. 7 revealed that subdivided to instal individual/private facilities. The the population was then twice the initial population. water infrastructure was extended with new branches, Several authors reported the different bargaining stra- each directly connected to the original main pipe. tegies through which residents have ensured a better Consequently, the collective water infrastructure (tanks use of space through illegal construction (Koh 2006; located on the rooftops of each building and pipes) Geertman and Kim 2019). These strategies, which stopped functioning. include bribing ward officials, political connections 170 F. N. ROSATI ET AL. Figure 4. Nguyen Cong Tru original block with extensions (photo by the authors). Today, each household has at least one private tank areas. The shared septic tanks and the secondary drai- to store water (generally anchored to the facade with nage branches running and collecting overflow from temporary hanging steel structures) and pays for water the septic tanks between the blocks are also under the according to its consumption. Residents on higher floors control of residents’ groups (TDPs). If in the French often suffer from water shortages, especially in the dry district the boundaries of co-production of the sanitary season, when dwellers at the lower floors store too much network and public space are defined by the alley, in water. Given the obsolescence of the pipes and the over- Soviet living neighbourhoods they are generally all infrastructure, many inhabitants employ filters to treat defined by two facing blocks. the drinking water. Like in the French District, the water company controls the branches until the water meter, Emerging forms of co-production: from while households are responsible for the installation and private to community management of water maintenance of small-scale technologies such as water and sanitation infrastructure in Linh Dam tanks and filter columns in the building blocks. towers The control of the sanitation infrastructure is mainly shared by the Hanoi Sewerage and Drainage Company From 1993 to 2001, 80% of the housing production in and resident groups. The division of responsibility Hanoi was in the popular sector, namely housing built between these organised groups and the government spontaneously by individuals within the boundaries of is unclear. While individual housing units in KTT were the abovementioned housing policies. In the 2000s, privatised in 1994, the common areas remained under the housing-service scheme promoted by ‘The State government ownership. Thus, the government is offi - and the People work together’ greatly reduced the cially responsible for maintaining common areas, build- role of state planning authorities. The revision of the ing structure and common facilities such as sewerage, land law in the 2000s marked the beginning of a new septic tanks and water storage tanks. In practice, the phase of urban development. The rise of foreign and TDP, through households’ contributions, is mainly state investments supported the production of large, responsible for the maintenance of drainage and septic multi-storey buildings and road infrastructures. The tanks and the management of waste and common current form of urban reordering consists of INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 171 constructing new urban areas (NUAs) by converting to building land. In 2015, four more 29–32 storey rural land into urbanised land. This conversion occurs buildings (VP2-VP3-VP4-VP5) were built in this neigh- through large expropriations of agricultural land, the bourhood. This process of densification was not fore- filling of existing lakes and ponds, and the construc- seen in the original HUD plan. Consequently, the tion of new high-density built-up areas disconnected existing water network did not have enough capa- from the existing built environment. The majority of city, in terms of either quantity of resources or water the NUAs are produced by domestic companies with pipe sizing. This situation created huge problems strong connections to the state (Tran 2015). By law, with water shortages, as the underground water the new property complexes must design, integrate tanks in the older blocks were no longer receiving and instal decentralised infrastructures for water and sufficient water at adequate pressure. As a result of sanitation. Through this arrangement, called land for two years of organised waves of protests and claims infrastructure, planning authorities use the land as an with the local People’s Committee, new pipelines in-kind payment for the construction of technical were built to serve the new buildings. The area infrastructure and public services (Labbé and Musil started to receive surface water from the Da River 2014). This phenomenon is contributing to the accel- Company No. 4. In each block, the water is first eration in the production of new housing while stored in two underground water tanks and after- extending the infrastructure network to peri-urban wards pumped to two water tanks on the upper areas. However, as several authors have shown, inves- floor. By gravity feed, it is then distributed to tors often try to increase built-up density and surface each flat. to gain more profit, neglecting the requirements for The management and maintenance of the techni- public spaces, green areas and facilities (Hien 2005; cal infrastructure in Linh Đàm, as in other NUAs, is Tran 2015). delegated to management boards whose duties, Linh Đàm was the first NUA project in Vietnam. organisation and responsibilities are defined by the Strategically located near downtown Hanoi and con- 2014 Housing Law. nected to major transport axes, Linh Đàm was built on During the construction phase and the first former paddy fields. The Urban and Housing years of the life of the buildings, the investor Development Investment Corporation (HUD) devel- nominates a management board to develop and oped the area after the masterplan was approved in manage the infrastructure in the whole area. When 1999. HUD is a state-owned enterprise operating all the flats are sold, the investor is no longer under the Ministry of Construction. While the plan- responsible for the maintenance of the technical ning of the area was centralised, the flats’ design and infrastructure, which is often handed over user construction were delegated to several subcontrac- groups, the residents’ management boards, which tors, who completed the project in 2002. In terms of represent the dwellers in each tower. Unlike resi- built environment, Linh Dam appears as a patchwork dent groups (TDPs), which are an extended arm of of Western building types (high-rise buildings), villas, the government, management boards only have housing blocks, and facilities planned for the upper- technical responsibility. They are voted for by the middle-class residents (Figure 5). people every 3–5 years, and they play a relevant The overlap of two alternative systems of water role in representing the users, negotiating with the supply, developed in two different periods, reflects property developer and the local authorities, and the increased density in the area. The first system is managing the fees for the maintenance of the an independent water supply network that makes buildings and related infrastructure. As Hien use of groundwater captured by ten wells controlled (2005) pointed out, the investors often delay the by the Linh Dam Water Company. The second sys- establishment of residents’ management boards to tem was implemented in 2017 in response to the maintain control over public space and to increase constant shortages due to the construction of new their profits through its privatisation (i.e. property tower blocks in the area. This was possible since the densification, rent). In Linh Đàm, after waves of investor, to increase profits, took advantage of the complaints, these residents’ organisations suc- presence of a nearby city park. Instead of providing ceeded in forcing private investors to build green facilities and open areas for the residents (parks and areas and playgrounds as opposed to a private playgrounds), it changed the land use of open areas gym and a tennis court (Tran 2015). 172 F. N. ROSATI ET AL. Figure 5. Linh Dam Condominiums (photo by the authors). Shifting territorial boundaries in spaces of The co-production between service users and reg- ular providers in NUAs is substitutive, since it is the co-production output of a synergic relationship between planning Technological change and innovation impact the authorities and the private sector to accelerate the reconfiguration of the urban form and the interac- process of urbanisation and service delivery. On the tions among urban activities and dwellers (Brotchie one hand, citizens of NUAs are expected to bear more 1984). At the same time, the evolution of the city plays responsibility and risks related to the high costs of a relevant role in the reconfiguration of technologies maintaining such large-scale infrastructures. In return, and their adaptation to social and material needs co-production guarantees them greater decision- (Bolay and Kern 2011). making capacity in the allocation of resources, lower What emerges from a transversal reading of the costs of repair and maintenance and, at the same three case studies is that the space of co-production is time, a certain degree of territorial control. not static but fluid, that is, capable of expanding and contracting from a technological (infrastructure) and managerial (service) point of view. These cases Discussion demonstrate a close relationship between the shifting In the case studies addressed in this paper, the differ - territorial boundaries within the built environment ent practices of service co-production have not been and the functioning and reconfiguring of the techni- cal infrastructures that deliver water and sanitation planned by policy or designed as such, but they have developed over the time in a co-evolutionary relation- services. ship with the built environment and its governing Three modes of urban incrementalism can be observed. These refer to Dovey and King (2011) organisations. As a result of constant spatial adjust- ments, incremental infrastructures and hybrid forms types of settlement growth. The first is inserting build- of water and sanitation service provision have ings into inhabited areas, as shown by the rise of tube houses in the open spaces of colonial villas. The den- emerged and evolved over time, thus inviting some reflections on the incremental nature of service co- sification of the urban landscape, invited by the state production (Figure 6). through a land reallocation policy and designed by INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 173 drivers space involved in water infrastructure sanitation infrastructure urban transformation co-production after co-production and public space control Case 1 French District complementary additive “invited” increase in territorial depth (public space) State: land realloca- tion plan branches controlled by residential groups have from one private plot to User: housing design the company until the been entitled to control over many private plots acces- the alleys and drainage and construction sible by shared alleys meter (plot) 1920s 1960s current substitutive Case 2 “popular” decrease in territorial complementary depth (public space) User: house exten- Nguyen Cong Tru sion branches controlled by the government has from one common space State: house-repair retired from its role as to private facilities; occu- the company until the cooperative scheme provider, entitling TDP to meter (block) pation of open space control public space and 1960s 1980s current drainage “invited” decrease in territorial substitutive Case 1 compensatory depth (public space) State: land use Linh Dam change permit from one public land for the government has de- new supply lines con- recreation activities, to Investor: new bu- nected to centralised legated control to private ilt-up land new residential towers water supply network investors, and lately to dwellers 1998s 2014s current Figure 6. Co-production development in the three case studies. Image produced by the author. households, has increased territorial depth through the Soviet blocks and the government-led process of the creation of alleys between the building blocks. densification of the French District. Both processes of This has in turn extended the water and sanitation urban transformation through densification have been infrastructure through the multiplication of house- taken multiple years, triggering a progressive adapta- holds’ technical devices (tanks) and branches (pipes tion of the building systems and the technical infra- and lines) connected to a newly built secondary drai- structure. However, the two case studies differ. In the nage and water pipe. French District, the reconfiguration of the water and The second type of densification is attaching, such sanitation networks has a cumulative character, as it is as the informal accretions that grow out of the the outcome of a series of small-scale, incremental Nguyễn Công Trứ building blocks. In this case, com- additions over time (Geels 2002). In Nguyễn Công Trứ, mon spaces have progressively been turned into pri- the reconfiguration of the water and sanitation infra- vate spaces. Unlike the previous case, the water structure has a disruptive character, as the switch from infrastructure expanded through the multiplication collective to individual facilities has partially dis- of branches directly connected to the original main mantled the original model of service delivery. trunk. In the second category, we find the construction of The third model of urban densification is settling on the new towers by property investors in Linh Đàm. This unbounded land. This is the case for the Linh Đàm sudden process of densification challenged the capa- NUA built by the property investor on the land city of the existing infrastructure system to cope with planned for a park. In this case, the incrementalism incremental changes (increasing amounts of water of the water and sanitation infrastructure is expressed requested by new dwellers and underestimating in the design of a concurrent water supply network, water pipe sections). This in turn triggered a redesign independent of the existing one. of the technical infrastructure, now based on the coex- These cases have further helped us to identify two istence of two systems for the water supply. main types of urban and technical incrementalism: a gradual and incremental change and a rapid and Complementary versus concurrent co-production discontinuous one (Levinthal 1998). In the first cate- gory, we find the step-by-step urban redevelopment The literature has shown that technologies mobilised triggered by the informal, individual-led extensions in in co-production can contribute to the amelioration of 174 F. N. ROSATI ET AL. the current conventional system, or they can intro- design. In this case, the infrastructure system has duce a further level of complexity into the network developed mainly from a decentralised solution (Jaglin 2012; Allen et al. 2017; Moretto and Ranzato (wells connected to an independent network) to 2017). Despite the divergences, the three cases show a more centralised (subnetwork) model. The expan- that technical hybridisation of the water and sanita- sion of the technical portfolio, due to the differentia - tion infrastructures leads to a co-existence of opera- tion of water resources (from groundwater to both tional networks, where large-scale centralised groundwater and surface water), should be under- infrastructure systems and small-scale decentralised stood as a wider programme at the municipal level. technologies are employed simultaneously to deliver The plan is to increase the use of surface water, mainly services to urban dwellers. due to the decline of the groundwater level and the In the first case, co-production arrangements can increasing contamination of arsenic, coliforms and result in complementary networks that citizens, nitrogen (Bui et al. 2018), and to extend the net- beyond the centralised infrastructure, adopt to worked infrastructure to those areas (mainly peri- improve access to water supply and sanitation. In urban) which are still disconnected. this sense, these self-help initiatives reconfigure and As we have seen, incrementalism contributes to complete unfinished networks through the means of producing more complex networks through different alternative, small-scale sociotechnical arrangements types of technical infrastructure. This incremental installed and managed by households (Zérah 2000). development allows us to navigate from more formal This model applies to both the tube houses in the to more informal ways of service provision and vice French District and the Soviet blocks in Nguyễn Công versa (Misra 2014), producing an assemblage of cen- Trứ, where the smaller networks at the level of the tralised and decentralised technical solutions, which house and block develop to correct gaps in service characterise the hybrid nature of service co- delivery (i.e. low pressure in the pipes, which does not production. allow the water to reach upper floors, as well as an often irregular and dirty water supply). Since, the densification processes in the Soviet neighbourhood The cyclical nature of service co-production and the French District were not sustained by ade- quate public infrastructure, co-production materia- The existing literature presents co-production as a linear lised in complementary strategies that allowed the process, and it tends to differentiate types of co- public network to reach the last built-up units. Those production according to the phase of the service cycle compensatory strategies represent what Kyessi in which citizens are engaged (Moretto and Ranzato (2005), referring to the technological upgrade of 2017). Co-production is generally disaggregated into co- water infrastructure in Dar Es Salam, would define as planning, co-design, co-delivery, and co-assessment, a ‘step-by-step’ development model (p. 10). The referring to the stage within the service cycle in which devices installed depend mainly on the financial capa- community and state actors work together to produce city of the household, as well as the characteristics of something of value (Nabatchi et al. 2017). the settlement where they are to be installed. These However, the technological incrementalism high- devices coexist with large-scale technical infrastruc- lighted in the three cases analysed in this paper ques- tures, as in the case of Linh Đàm, where, despite the tions a linear understanding of co-production. The employment of high-tech and large-scale solutions, analysis instead suggests a cyclical model of techno- groundwater contamination by arsenic forced house- logical change, where periods of incremental change holds to equip their flats with water filters, or to buy in the water and sanitation infrastructure are dis- bottled water. rupted by subsequent technological breakthroughs Technical hybridisation can also occur at larger (Anderson and Tushman 1990; Geels 2002). scales, such as at the scale of the neighbourhood, Incrementalism implies a feedback loop of disruption and it can result in the coexistence of concurrent and redesign of the technical infrastructure, which networks. In Linh Đàm, the existence of two water feeds co-production activities, as citizens are perma- networks can be explained by the increasing contam- nently engaged in fixing, disrupting and redesigning ination of underground water and the overpopulation their built environment and embedded infrastructure of the area, which was not foreseen in the initial systems. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 175 On the one hand, co-production and technical production of service delivery as individuals, groups incrementalism represent strategies to fix disruption. or collectives (Brudney and England 1983), and they Indeed, the co-produced arrangements that emerge can operate within different territorial boundaries, i.e. in the presented cases can be considered as socio- at the scale of the house, the street, or the neighbour- technical solutions that address the shortcomings of hood (Moretto et al. 2018; Faldi et al. 2019). On one existing infrastructure systems (water shortages, irre- hand, this affects the distribution of benefits (users are gular pressure, unsafe quality, or clogs of sewerage more incentivised to co-produce where the benefits pipes) during a transitory phase. The material reconfi - are personal) and, on the other, it affects the organisa- guration of the analysed co-produced infrastructures tional and management aspects of the co-produced largely relies on hybrid and/or decentralised systems service. van Vliet et al. (2005) suggested that the size able to replace or complement the infrastructure of an organisation depends on the scale of the tech- network. nology. Larger system scales may imply more com- On the other hand, co-production and increment- plex technical devices, and consequent changes in alism are also provoking disruption, as the growth of roles of users and their scale of involvement might the settlement can threaten the good functioning and lead to a change in service co-production schemes. proper maintenance of current sanitation infrastruc- The building systems of the three case studies tures up to the point where the infrastructure col- differ in terms of housing type as well as scale, ranging lapses. The more complex an infrastructure system from individual 4-storey dwellings (the tube houses becomes, the more severe the issues of maintenance, between the French colonial villas), 4-storey collective technical breakages and shortages that users and/or blocks (Nguyễn Công Trứ socialist housing) and 30- providers need to face. As the case of the Soviet storey blocks of flats (Linh Đàm NUA). As we have blocks in Nguyễn Công Trứ shows, despite a regular, seen, co-production does not develop in the same centrally controlled water flow in each block, house- way in different built environments. The related tech- holds continuously need to address inequalities in the nical infrastructure and devices employed vary with way they access water services. When the tenants of the scale of buildings. Available technology for co- the lower floors store too much water (by buying production depends on contextual features, such as tanks of greater capacity or providing their units settlement characteristics, land location, and distance with more than one tank), the tenants of the upper and/or connection to the centralised networks floors suffer from water shortages. (Moretto et al. 2018). Density and housing typologies In addressing and at the same time feeding disrup- should also be considered determinants of water and tion, co-production implies that citizens constantly sanitation co-production, as they influence the tech- redefine their spatial conditions and redesign the nological systems and devices that can be employed technical portfolio they employ. In this sense, we (Schramm 2011). understand that the co-production of water and sani- Hierarchical structures, such as water supply net- tation services is a self-feeding process which, by works, can be considered as assemblies, composed of nature, through breakages and adaptations, produces different parts ‘that lend themselves for control by innovation and further transformations. ‘Indeed, there separate agents in charge of the design or mainte- is some evidence to suggest that this kind of piece-by- nance’ (Habraken 1987, p. 3). The urban morphology piece adaptation is a leading cause of innovation, (plot, street, constructed space, open space) shapes acting a continuous feedback loop of experimenta- the typologies and control over water and sanitation tion, which, through many small increments in prac- service infrastructures, and it defines the opportu- tical knowledge, can produce large changes’ (Graham nities and constraints of incremental development. and Thrift 2007, p. 5). As we have seen in the high-density French District, the size of the alleys shapes the boundaries of the group co-production in the management of the ter- Technological incrementalism and co-production tiary drainage system, as well as limiting the possibi- at different scales lities of further incremental development. At the same The literature tends to differentiate co-production time, the size of the dwellings (mainly inhabited by according to the scale of user involvement in the one household) and the dwellings’ vertical growth service delivery process. Users can be engaged in co- triggers household co-production practices, such as 176 F. N. ROSATI ET AL. the installation and maintenance of septic tanks, Conclusions water pumps and storage tanks. In Nguyễn Công The relationship between planned built environments Trứ, the original design of the buildings and the and incremental spatial transformations has been dis- open space between blocks represented an opportu- cussed in three case studies through examples of nity for individual households to extend their private different urban, social and political visions that the space, while installing individual facilities (kitchen and city of Hanoi has embedded over the years. In these toilets). This situation, in turn, contributed to the case studies, incrementalism has been produced and switch from a group level of co-production of water scaled through material reconfigurations that experi- supply (which is still operating for the sanitary net- mented with new forms of sociotechnical infrastruc- work) to an individual one, through the multiplication ture due to changes in spatial patterns (Silver 2014). of small-scale technologies that are easily installed in In conclusion: first, the three cases have highlighted the blocks and suitable to the building’s height. a relationship between the evolution of co-production Incrementalism describes the spontaneous room- practices that deliver the water and sanitation services by-room process of accretion of the built environment and the changing control of state and community that extends the building systems horizontally (i.e. in actors in the production and maintenance of the the building blocks in Nguyễn Công Trứ) or vertically built environment. In particular, they have highlighted (in the French district tube houses). This process, dri- the role of community organisations (TDPs and resi- ven by the imperatives of resource accumulation, dents’ management boards) as central in reworking family ties and spatial conditions is more likely to the state’s boundaries (Koh 2006). This confirms the occur on small-scale plots (such as the tube houses), fluid nature of Vietnamese urbanisation processes, as they allow many people to engage directly in where popular, bottom-up impulses are incrementally designing, building and maintaining their built envir- accommodated within state-led dynamics of space onment (Brandt 1994). However, it seems that co- production (Koh 2006; McGee 2009; Tran 2015). production has transformed more consistently on Second, the empirical evidence presented in this the intermediate scale of Nguyễn Công Trứ, as the article confirms that infrastructures play a central role scale of the buildings and the public space organised in the incremental process of consolidation and recon- between the built-up areas has allowed both vertical figuration of the built environment. Infrastructures’ and horizontal expansions of the built space and the adaptability to changing spatial conditions influence overall redesign of the technical infrastructure the ways different forms of co-production initiatives employed. develop on different scales to guarantee and/or In large-scale property developments, this pro- improve access to water and sanitation services. cess of adaptation is not likely to develop in the Third, most of these incremental transformations same way, and the upgrade of water infrastructures trigger urban and technical hybridisation, as the den- might be more problematic and costly. In the NUA sification of the building systems requires an exten- of Linh Đàm, the difficulties in maintaining the sion or a multiplication of the technical portfolio in large-scale technical infrastructure are reflected in the service cycle. Hybridisation can take the shape of the complex system of operation of the manage- downscaling the key technologies and infrastructures ment boards, which have to coordinate many providing water and sanitation services. It can lead to actors, and to organise among the different towers. complementary or concurrent forms of co- At present, this built environment does not seem production, but it can also contribute to the disrup- adequate for urban incrementalism, as the building tion of existing technical systems and their substitu- codes strictly forbid any private transformation. tion with new ones. As a consequence of those However, all buildings are prone to change with processes, the centralised provision of water and sani- time. A process of infringement is already occur- tation and localised co-production has become mixed ring, as households are starting to set up shops up (van Vliet 2012). and workplaces in their homes and customising Finally, the cases have shown that such reconfi - the building’s ground floors to host activities and guration processes are not necessarily rapid. Instead, services for the neighbourhood. This may in future they are often the outcomes of a series of small, expand the existing water and sanitation incremental adaptations over time, whose cumulative infrastructure. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 177 effect can be at least as substantial as the effect of Jacques Teller is a professor of urban planning at the University of Liège, where he is leading the Local Environment abrupt innovations (Geels 2002). Both forms of inno- Management and Analysis (LEMA) research group. His PhD the- vation require users to ‘play an active role in adsorb- sis was dedicated to the modelling and management of urban ing, coordinating, and even orchestrating the form. He is presently a member of the Scientific Council of IRSTV disruption’ (Furlong 2014, p. 143). and Efficacity Research Institutes in France. However, despite being incremental and provi- Address: e-mail: jacques.teller@uliege.be sional, these sociotechnical arrangements can also be progressively replaced by others due to broader urban dynamics and environmental transformations. These ORCID factors make it very hard to evaluate the sustainability Luisa Moretto http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9437-7463 of co-produced arrangements. Moreover, the risks of Jacques Teller http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2498-1838 socio-spatial fragmentation linked with technical and urban incrementalism exist. This issue deserves further empirical and theoretical research. 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An incremental approach to service co-production: unfolding the co-evolution of the built environment and water and sanitation infrastructures

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 2022, VOL. 14, NO. 1, 162–179 https://doi.org/10.1080/19463138.2020.1818085 An incremental approach to service co-production: unfolding the co-evolution of the built environment and water and sanitation infrastructures a,b b a Federica Natalia Rosati , Luisa Moretto and Jacques Teller a b LEMA, Université de Liège, Liège, Belgium; HABITER, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgium ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY Received 23 September 2019 The literature is increasingly approaching the participation of households in the Accepted 20 August 2020 delivery of urban services through the lens of co-production. However, there has been no in-depth exploration of the relationship between incremental changes in the KEYWORDS urban fabric (urban typologies and morphologies) and the forms of adaptations of co- Water and sanitation produced water and sanitation services (WSS). The paper draws on three planned services; co-production; neighbourhoods in Hanoi to examine these incremental changes by considering the urban transformation; transformation of the neighbourhood at different scales and the consequent evolu- incremental infrastructures; Hanoi tion of the sociotechnical arrangements for the delivery of water and sanitation services. By exploring forms of reconfiguration of the built environment and embedded water infrastructures, the paper outlines the possibility of an alternate reading of service co- production initiatives as incremental spatial practices, with an emphasis on the role of technology in allowing transformation processes. Introduction reconfigurations that combine social and material activities (McFarlane 2011). The participation of communities in the processes of formation and consolidation of urban settle- While many urban buildings, especially in the global South, are auto-constructed and continually adapted – ments and related infrastructure is becoming even architecturally designed buildings are constantly increasingly important in fast-growing cities in the being tinkered with. This produces gradual but distinc- Global South. ‘Incremental’, ‘tactical’, ‘handmade’ tive changes in their layout, skin and appearance. Very world cities are rapidly growing outside and often, the issues raised by this continual repair and beyond planning processes, challenging the ability adaptation of buildings are actually completely ignored in the original design process. (Graham and Thrift 2007, of national and local governments to keep up with p. 17) the provision of integrated services to urban dwell- ers. The concept of incrementalism has entered As for the urban space, the reconfiguration of urban studies, referring to the improvisations, infrastructure networks occurs not only over the accretions and learning processes that charac- long term, but also through small changes and terises the production and consolidation of the variations, which, combined, cause their global urban space. Drawing on the concept of ‘intensive transformation. Offner (1993) suggests that incre- multiplicity’ developed by Deleuze and Guattari mental networks are characterised by a paradoxical (1987), the city is understood as the result of change in continuity, i.e. networks are built from a step-by-step process that leads to consolidation pre-existing networks and develop new configura - over time through new spatial additions and tions in a relationship of complementarity or CONTACT Federica Natalia Rosati federicanatalia.rosati@gmail.com LEMA, Université de Liège, Liège, Belgium © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 163 competition. In this sense, the sociotechnical pro- policies and strategies to deliver public services to cess of co-production of water and sanitation ser- an increasing number of urban dwellers. After vices (WSS) acts as an incremental learning process a period dominated by centralisation, liberalisation through which urban dwellers participate in mak- and privatisation, service co-production has aroused ing their cities, shaping their organisational limits interest both in the Global North and the Global and conditions of possibility (McFarlane 2011; South. A broad literature, mostly on public adminis- Silver 2014). tration, has conceptualised and delimited the bound- In Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital city, investments in large- aries of citizen-state engagement in service co- scale infrastructures contribute to extending the access production (Brudney and England 1983; Joshi and to centralised water and sanitation networks. Still the Moore 2004; Moretto and Ranzato 2017; Nabatchi limitations of centralised water networks (i.e. irregular et al. 2017). Most research addresses the motivations and unsafe drinking water provision, insufficient waste- behind service co-production (why do service users water collection and treatment) along with processes co-produce), its institutional setting (how do users of territorial reconfiguration (i.e. densification of built- and providers interact) and its benefits. Within Urban up areas, rural-urban reconversion) require citizens to South studies, service co-production is often seen as engage in co-production of water and sanitation ser- a way to overcome the dichotomy between formal vices, leading to pragmatic reconfigurations of techni- and informal approaches to urban planning and ser- cal devices and infrastructure systems (Button 2017). vice delivery (Misra 2014; Faldi et al. 2019). The litera- This paper analyses the coevolution of the built envir- ture refers to the collaborative dimension of service onment and embedded water and sanitation infra- co-production and its long-term benefits. The interest structures. In this perspective, service co-production in co-production of public services is underpinned by acts as an incremental practice. The paper explores the view that the engagement of users in some or all the following questions. How and why did planned the phases of the service cycle may bring double built environments become sites of service co- benefits. For some, co-production constitutes production? What was the role of incremental adapta- a service delivery model that may improve service tions of water and sanitation infrastructures in the co- efficiency and accountability by making better use of production of services? the available resources while increasing trust among The article firstly discusses incrementalism as the actors involved. Indeed, state and citizens have a theoretical framework to understand how, through different but complementary forms of knowledge, co-production, Hanoi dwellers can achieve improved which together can contribute to improving service water supply and sanitation by means of hybrid infra- outcomes (Ostrom 1996; Watson 2014). For others, structures and incremental sociotechnical develop- the move towards co-production as public govern- ment. It uses three case studies of planned ance and policy framing tool is a way of addressing neighbourhoods to analyse how urban dwellers institutional deficits by favouring the reconfiguration engage with existing spatial conditions, reconfigure of state-society relationships through the rise of new their urban space and seek to adjust and maintain the democratic institutions (Mitlin 2008). By contrast circulation of water on a very local scale to respond to some authors raise concerns about co-production increasing density. It concludes by outlining some initiatives as forms of co-optation, as vehicles for the theoretical considerations resulting from examining institutionalisation of inequalities (Jaglin 2002; the development of water and sanitation infrastruc- Cornwall 2004) and as drivers of socio-spatial frag- ture and the technical devices employed in incremen- mentation (Cabrera 2015; Moretto et al. 2018). tal development by stressing the place-based nature Literature on socio-technical systems generally con- of co-production and, at the same time, co- ceives service co-production as a decentralised, hybrid production’s path dependency on the dynamics of form of service delivery developed to bridge the gaps left urban transformations. by poor or absent centralised networks. In this literature, there are references to the adaptability of co-produced systems, related to the local capacity mobilised for deal- Co-production as incremental spatial practice ing with resources and technologies. However, there are For much of the past hundred years, governments major challenges in guaranteeing sustainable manage- have been experimenting with various models, ment of the system, maintaining service equity and 164 F. N. ROSATI ET AL. efficiency and ensuring water and environmental stan- Reading service co-production as an incremental dards (Faldi et al. 2019). In spite of a still blurred definition spatial practice, as opposed to a policy or a static and controversies over its benefits, co-production is gen- service delivery model, helps us to understand its erally mobilised as a policy tool for integration into urban origin, evolution and role in the transformation of planning or public services delivery schemes to improve Global South cities. Three main aspects allow us to service quality while promoting more horizontal govern- read co-production as incremental spatial practice. ance forms (Ostrom 1996; Joshi and Moore 2004; Mitlin The evolutionary dimension of WSS co-production is 2008). primarily linked with the role of the state and its The definition for this paper comes from Joshi and changing relationship with society. Governance dri- Moore (2004), which defines institutionalised service co- vers, as changes in the political environment at the production as ‘the provision of public services (broadly national or local scale, might trigger a decline in state defined to include regulation) through a regular long- provision (institutional deficit) and therefore engage term relationship between state agencies and organised citizens in co-production. Logistic or technical drivers, groups of citizens where both make substantial resource such as distance to the urban core, might also explain contributions’ (p. 31). This framework is appropriate for why communities, disconnected from networked our study, since it recognises the key role organised infrastructures, get involved in service delivery (Joshi service users play in the service delivery process, within and Moore 2004). Co-production might evolve as complex policy arrangements over a wide timeframe, in a substitutive practice (i.e. government retiring from which state-society synergistic relationships are being being service provider) or as an additive practice (i.e. continuously renegotiated. Moreover, we consider institutionalisation of self-help practices or conven- a number of intermediaries, such as community groups, tional service provision models supported by users) volunteering associations, NGOs and private companies (Bovaird and Loeffler 2012). Consequently, the rela- that might endorse different roles as co-producers and tionships between actors involved in service co- co-managers, thus contributing to negotiating the production and their long-term goals are constantly boundaries between state and society (Bovaird 2007). under negotiation. However, in this paper we step back from the more Moreover, as water and sewerage infrastructures traditional understanding of service co-production and (tanks, pumps, pipes) are embedded in the physical we approach it from a descriptive rather than a normative boundaries of the built environment, there is perspective. In other words, we do not focus on the a relationship between the form and structure of this collaborative dimension of co-production practices; nor built environment and the territorial boundaries of co- do we evaluate their benefits in terms of quality of produced practices (Ostrom 1990; Habraken and services. The focus is rather on understanding how ser- Teicher 1998). Dwellers may operate in different vice co-production develops. This implies exploring dif- ways with respect to their built environment at ferent types of co-production initiatives and their a local scale (Habraken and Teicher 1998; Silver 2014; evolution over time. In particular, we focus on the co- Moretto et al. 2018). Local factors, such as available production of WSS. As supply forms are part of the built resources or dwelling typologies, shape the evolution environment, it is relevant to include spatial considera- of the different co-production options, along path- tions in the observation of co-produced water and sanita- dependency trajectories (Monstadt and Schramm tion services (Moretto et al. 2018; Faldi et al. 2019). The 2015; Faldi et al. 2019). Changes in territorial config - way co-production is influenced by and influences the uration (form and control of the built environment) reconfiguration of the built environment and how it might require adjustment of some water infrastruc- evolves over time, in terms of space, technology and tures. This in turn may contribute to the evolution of involved social structures, has not yet received extensive co-production practices (Offner 1993; Habraken and exploration. In this paper, service co-production is under- Teicher 1998). Echoing Cornwall (2004), co-production stood as an incremental practice, namely a process in can take the form of ‘invited space’ (i.e. government which hybrid modalities of service provision, involving supporting bottom-up actions to increase urban den- state actors, service users and a wide range of intermedi- sity) or ‘popular space’ (i.e. bottom-up construction aries, are interacting in an evolving socio-political, techni- initiatives occurring outside regulatory frameworks). cal and territorial context (Joshi and Moore 2004; Ahlers However, the ‘boundaries between “invited” and et al. 2014; Faldi et al. 2019). “popular” spaces are mutable, rather than fixed. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 165 “Popular spaces” can become institutionalised, with Grounded in the idea that the co-production of statutory backing, and “invited spaces” may become water and sanitation services has a path-dependent sites for the articulation of dissent, as well as for nature, this paper draws attention to the relationship collaboration and compromise’ (Cornwall 2004, p. 2). between the evolution of co-produced practices and The evolution of the built environment may influence the processes of consolidation and transformation of WSS co-production and related infrastructures that human settlements. It does so by looking at the incre- keep ‘in-the-making, undergoing constant adjust- mental nature of the built environment and the role of ment and intervention, and in a permanent state of incrementalism in sustaining urban livelihoods through flux’ (Silver 2014, p. 788). processes of maintenance, upgrade and transformation Finally, the evolution of WSS co-production is also of WSS infrastructures (Offner 1993; Graham and Thrift linked with the unfinished nature of infrastructure net- 2007; Silver 2014; Button 2017) (Figure 1). works (Zérah 2000; Button 2017; Faldi et al. 2019). The adaptability of WSS infrastructures plays an important Between popular and invited development: role in the sociotechnical and spatial reconfiguration of Hanoi’s incremental growth co-produced water and sanitation services. The incre- mental development of infrastructures can take differ - The second largest city in Vietnam, Hanoi, is growing ent shapes. It can act as an upgrade of the existing rapidly and occupies an area of 3.300 km in the Red technical portfolio used in co-production (Moretto et al. River Delta (Labbé and Musil 2014). Urbanisation pro- 2018), or as a multiplication of supply systems and cesses in Hanoi are the outcomes of socialist related technical devices (Button 2017). It can be self- approaches and market mechanisms that characterise feeding, for example when co-produced services acti- the fluid and contrasting nature of state-society rela- vate some financial resources that allow to extend the tionships in space production logics (Geertman 2003; existing network and to include new dwellers (Cabrera McGee 2009; Tran 2015). On the one hand, there are 2015). Finally, co-production can be adaptable, as it large-scale urban plans, representing globally circulat- might rapidly evolve to cover the gaps between con- ing visions of modernity and characterised by con- ventional and networked infrastructures, revealing nectedness to centralised infrastructure networks a stop-gap nature (Zérah 2000; Jaglin 2002). (Schramm 2016b). The plans drawn by French INCREMENTAL WATER AND SANITATION SERVICE CO-PRODUCTION Co-production Co-production Co-production A’ A A’’ Consolidation Origin complementary concurrent ORGANIZATION Decline Initial development BUILT ENVIRONMENT EVOLUTION RECONFIGURATION Disappearance Transformation Consolidation Origin complementary concurrent Initial development Decline Transformation Disappearance INFRASTRUCTURE ADAPTATION Figure 1. Framework for analysing the evolution of co-production of water and sanitation services. Developed by the authors based on Offner (1993) 166 F. N. ROSATI ET AL. colonials supporting the image of a sanitary city, the localised alternative systems. Those alternative sys- dormitory settlements (KTTs) drawn with technical tems engage citizens at different scales in the produc- and economic support from the former Soviet Union tion and management of the technical infrastructure and the current masterplan that promotes the image for the delivery of water and sanitation services. This of neoliberal city development (Aimini 2013) fall into engagement involves economic resources (co- this category. On the other hand, and in contrast to funding), maintenance and repair (co-management) these planned forms of city development, urbanism in and planning (co-planning). They do not develop Hanoi is also produced on the local scale, determined against a lack of centralised water and sanitation net- by site-specific social and spatial instances, in works. On the contrary, they coexist and dialogue a pragmatic and incremental way (Kerkvliet 2001; with existing infrastructure networks (Rao 2015). Koh 2006; Geertman 2007). A number of policies This article considers three neighbourhoods adopted from the 1980s, in contrast with the progres- where current co-production of water and sanitation sive retreat of the government in the provision and services developed and transformed over time, maintenance of the housing stock, de facto invited rather than being planned in advance. These case and institutionalised unplanned and popular urban studies depict the chronological evolution of Hanoi growth (Cerise 2009; Geertman and Kim 2019). and they reflect specific visions and models of urba- The tensions between planning models and mate- nisation. They represent centrally planned urban rial improvisations that arise in the city’s incremental types connected to the municipal water and sewer- development emerge at different scales and deter- age networks. The planning and construction of the mine the way infrastructure is produced and reconfi - technical infrastructure were included in the initial gured and the ways that water and sanitation services design of the area and the building systems. are currently delivered to urban dwellers (Schramm However, co-production initiatives evolved as ‘small 2014). While expanding and transforming to sustain acts of design’ in line with the processes of urban and the rapid pace of urbanisation, Hanoi water and sani- infrastructure reconfiguration (Rao 2015, p. 41) and tation networks are leading to anguish over constant the changing relationships between the actors shortcomings, which have generated ingenious and involved (Figure 2). New Urban Areas French District Soviet Living Quarters Figure 2. The three models of planned urbanisation addressed in Hanoi. French District, KTT Soviet Living Quarters, NUAs New Urban Areas. Image produced by the authors. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 167 Reconfiguring the urban block: alleyway and the creation of new branches for both water households co-producing water and distribution and wastewater collection to supply the sanitation services in the French district new buildings. Regarding the sanitation facilities, each house on the new allotment was provided with The French colonial masterplans contained the first a septic tank connected to the combined drainage phase of formally planned urbanism in Hanoi. The system. To reduce the amount of wastewater flowing plans were implemented from the 1890s to the into the tanks, they now only receive blackwater, 1940s as the first spatial reordering of the traditional while stormwater and greywater flow directly into urban fabric to accommodate the colonial elite while the drainage system (Schramm 2016a). The distribu- building the image of a new sanitary capital. The tion of control over the sanitation infrastructure French District predominately covers the southern occurs at three levels within the area. The manage- areas of the Hoàn Kiếm lake. It is organised as ment of the primary and secondary lines of the drai- a series of isolated and grouped villas surrounded by nage system is the responsibility of the Hanoi gardens. During colonial times, the area was con- Sewerage and Drainage Company Limited. In the nected to the water distribution network and alleys, within the blocks, control over the tertiary drai- a separate sewerage and drainage system. French nage lines is in the hands of service users, operating engineers included co-production arrangements in through institutionalised resident groups: tổ dân phố the initial design of the technical infrastructure. (TDPs). TDPs are responsible for the territorial control Indeed, the septic tanks, on-site treatment technolo- of the alleys, narrow streets from 1 to 2.5 m width, gies, were first planned and installed in each plot in inherited from the road networks of ancient villages this area. The flat terrain and the low, dense morphol- and defined by formal groupings of continuous rows ogy of the district characterised by villas, originally of houses sharing common spaces (Koh 2006). inhabited by one or two households, allowed to oper- Each group is represented by a leader (tổ trưởng tổ ate with septic tanks (Schramm and Contreras 2017). dân phố) elected to represent the community and to According to the French planners, septic tanks mediate with the ward’s authorities. As the smallest required large spaces to operate effectively, as they branches of the Vietnamese political system, resident should be easily accessible. Requiring constant main- groups allow the government to maintain tenance and periodic cleaning, this technology also a widespread control over the territory. At the same required adequate hygiene. time, as self-regulating institutions, they guarantee to The redevelopment of this area dates to the the alleyway households a certain autonomy in the time of collectivisation (under the socialist housing management of water infrastructures and public regime), when the Vietnamese Government confis - spaces. Through a common fund, made up of contri- cated and redistributed the colonial plots and butions from each household, the TDPs co-plan, co- houses, either for public functions or to house fund and co-manage the alleyway space at group the families of public officials (Cerise 2009). The level (i.e. they improve shared space such as street progressive development (Turner and Fichter 1972) paving and green areas), allowing the evolution and of the French District consisted of a shifting of maintenance of technical services (such as the drai- territories generated by newly built dweller-driven nage system). Finally, at the scale of the plot, each housing units (Habraken and Teicher 1998). These household is responsible for the maintenance of the so-called tube houses (referring to the shape of the septic tank and the pipes connected to the drainage houses: tall and very narrow) occupied open spaces system. that were once the private gardens of colonial The distribution of control over the water infra- villas. As a result of this densification, promoted structure occurs at two levels within the area. The by the government through a land reallocation state-owned water enterprise, HAWACO, is responsi- plan, urban blocks were reconfigured around nar- ble for distributing water up to the water metre in row alleys overlooked by the entrances of new front of each house. At the scale of the plot, from the housing units and around the old colonial villas metre on, households are responsible for the con- (Figure 3). struction and maintenance of the water pipes and Water and sanitation infrastructures progressively any other devices necessary to ensure regular flows. expanded with the multiplication of technical devices To address gaps in service delivery (i.e. low pressure in 168 F. N. ROSATI ET AL. Figure 3. A French villa surrounded by tube houses in Hoan Kiem District (photo by the authors). the pipes that does not allow the water to reach upper production initiatives developed as additive prac- floors, as well as an often irregular and dirty water tices, since the government, by institutionalising flow), households complement the centralised net- previously informal resident groups (TDPs), recog- work. They ensure a constant supply of water by nised them as service providers. Co-production equipping their houses with water storage tanks operates here in the last phases of the water (both underground for storage and elevated to dis- cycle (storage and secondary treatment) at the tribute water by gravity), booster pumps, filter col- scale of the plot. This reveals the stop-gap nature umns and other devices to ensure uninterrupted of these co-produced practices of water supply, in water flow at sufficient pressure and to improve drink- which costs are shared among the households and ing water quality. Other adjustments in the water the water company, which keeps control over the network occur in highly dense alleys where plots branches up to the plot. have been subdivided or parts of houses have been rented. In these cases, several households, working with plumbers, configure a split water supply and Re-configuring the socialist condominium: share the devices they need to access water services. what remains of the collective water The case of the French District shows that an infrastructures in the Nguyễn Công Trứ soviet increase of the built environment density triggered living quarter the co-production of sanitation services that pro- The second phase of significant redevelopments and gressively extend from the scale of the plot (house- masterplans dates from the Soviet period. Between hold level) to the scale of the alley (group level), 1954 and 1975, the state played an important role in with on-site facilities (collection) under the control the provision of housing and basic services by provid- of households and tertiary branches (disposal) ing collective flats (khu tập thể, KTTs) to sustain rural- under the control of TDPs. In this case, co- INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 169 urban migrations and the reconstruction of the coun- with ward or higher state officers and relying on try’s economy. moral norms and customary rules, often see the head of the local TDP as central in promoting media- The case of Nguyễn Công Trứ represents the tion between groups of residents and local authorities first generation of living quarters produced by the (Geertman and Kim 2019) (Figure 4). Ministry of Construction after the Vietnam War. The As a result of these incremental transformations, the neighbourhood, originally a village settlement, is in water and sanitation infrastructures have undergone a historical area of Hanoi, which was converted changes that have altered the original configuration. into a cemetery during the colonial period. In Regarding the water supply system, from the neigh- 1960, after the end of colonial domination and bourhood’s inception to 1986, the government pro- during the Soviet period, the French cemetery vided water. Each family had to pay a monthly fixed was removed to construct social housing. fee, regardless of its consumption. Water was collected According to the original and centrally planned in two main water reservoirs in the neighbourhood and design, khu tập thể Nguyễn Công Trứ consists of pumped to each block. It was stored in tanks on the 14 housing blocks with four floors each, arranged rooftops. Water was then distributed by gravity on three allotments divided by main roads. The through two main pipes to the common kitchen and presence of public buildings, a general market, toilet areas on each floor. As reported by residents at a primary school, and a kindergarten reflects the the time, water was generally available, and some socialist way of producing residential areas at the redistribution practices were observed. time. Housing was considered a new social good, As also observed in other living quarters in Hanoi, and the notion of habitat was associated with col- co-production initiatives materialised as substitutive lectivism (Cerise 2009). The original flats (30 m ) on practices, since the government progressively each floor were organised around two common retreated from its role as exclusive service provider. spaces. Every floor contained a kitchen and toilets, The low rental rates (set below the level of actual accessible from a distribution space and shared housing costs) impeded the state housing agencies among eight households. When these large-scale from collecting sufficient funds for repair and main- developments were first installed, the state pro- tenance of the existing housing stock (Nguyen Quang vided for the water and sanitation infrastructure and Kammeir 2002). Residents regularly faced inade- and it covered maintenance costs. The state also quate water pressure, a choked drainage system and discouraged private housing and modification of poor septic tank maintenance. Moreover, the living the built environment through strict controls. conditions in the blocks were unbearable, given the Forms of incremental development in this area small size of the living space, which was often only started in the 1970s, with the loosening of the man- 2 m per person (Cerise 2009). agement of collective housing by the state. In this To address these deficiencies, Hanoi city administra- context, the collective housing blocks in Nguyễn tion developed a model of state-private cooperation for Công Trứ started to densify mainly through the occu- the upgrade of these collective areas in the 1980s. This pation of public spaces between the blocks and model, known as house repair cooperative schemes (Koh extensions of the flats, the so called tiger cages 2006), invited modification of the housing blocks. The (chuồng cọp). (Cerise 2009; Fanchette 2016). These government was responsible for providing building extended rooms, variable in size and function, are material and contributing economic support, while resi- generally supported by steel structures stretching dents contributed money and labour. Works included out up to 3 metres from the original façade of the repainting the facades, upgrades of the pipes and build- building. A survey conducted in 2007 by Hanoi ing individual kitchens and toilets. Collective spaces were Housing Development Company No. 7 revealed that subdivided to instal individual/private facilities. The the population was then twice the initial population. water infrastructure was extended with new branches, Several authors reported the different bargaining stra- each directly connected to the original main pipe. tegies through which residents have ensured a better Consequently, the collective water infrastructure (tanks use of space through illegal construction (Koh 2006; located on the rooftops of each building and pipes) Geertman and Kim 2019). These strategies, which stopped functioning. include bribing ward officials, political connections 170 F. N. ROSATI ET AL. Figure 4. Nguyen Cong Tru original block with extensions (photo by the authors). Today, each household has at least one private tank areas. The shared septic tanks and the secondary drai- to store water (generally anchored to the facade with nage branches running and collecting overflow from temporary hanging steel structures) and pays for water the septic tanks between the blocks are also under the according to its consumption. Residents on higher floors control of residents’ groups (TDPs). If in the French often suffer from water shortages, especially in the dry district the boundaries of co-production of the sanitary season, when dwellers at the lower floors store too much network and public space are defined by the alley, in water. Given the obsolescence of the pipes and the over- Soviet living neighbourhoods they are generally all infrastructure, many inhabitants employ filters to treat defined by two facing blocks. the drinking water. Like in the French District, the water company controls the branches until the water meter, Emerging forms of co-production: from while households are responsible for the installation and private to community management of water maintenance of small-scale technologies such as water and sanitation infrastructure in Linh Dam tanks and filter columns in the building blocks. towers The control of the sanitation infrastructure is mainly shared by the Hanoi Sewerage and Drainage Company From 1993 to 2001, 80% of the housing production in and resident groups. The division of responsibility Hanoi was in the popular sector, namely housing built between these organised groups and the government spontaneously by individuals within the boundaries of is unclear. While individual housing units in KTT were the abovementioned housing policies. In the 2000s, privatised in 1994, the common areas remained under the housing-service scheme promoted by ‘The State government ownership. Thus, the government is offi - and the People work together’ greatly reduced the cially responsible for maintaining common areas, build- role of state planning authorities. The revision of the ing structure and common facilities such as sewerage, land law in the 2000s marked the beginning of a new septic tanks and water storage tanks. In practice, the phase of urban development. The rise of foreign and TDP, through households’ contributions, is mainly state investments supported the production of large, responsible for the maintenance of drainage and septic multi-storey buildings and road infrastructures. The tanks and the management of waste and common current form of urban reordering consists of INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 171 constructing new urban areas (NUAs) by converting to building land. In 2015, four more 29–32 storey rural land into urbanised land. This conversion occurs buildings (VP2-VP3-VP4-VP5) were built in this neigh- through large expropriations of agricultural land, the bourhood. This process of densification was not fore- filling of existing lakes and ponds, and the construc- seen in the original HUD plan. Consequently, the tion of new high-density built-up areas disconnected existing water network did not have enough capa- from the existing built environment. The majority of city, in terms of either quantity of resources or water the NUAs are produced by domestic companies with pipe sizing. This situation created huge problems strong connections to the state (Tran 2015). By law, with water shortages, as the underground water the new property complexes must design, integrate tanks in the older blocks were no longer receiving and instal decentralised infrastructures for water and sufficient water at adequate pressure. As a result of sanitation. Through this arrangement, called land for two years of organised waves of protests and claims infrastructure, planning authorities use the land as an with the local People’s Committee, new pipelines in-kind payment for the construction of technical were built to serve the new buildings. The area infrastructure and public services (Labbé and Musil started to receive surface water from the Da River 2014). This phenomenon is contributing to the accel- Company No. 4. In each block, the water is first eration in the production of new housing while stored in two underground water tanks and after- extending the infrastructure network to peri-urban wards pumped to two water tanks on the upper areas. However, as several authors have shown, inves- floor. By gravity feed, it is then distributed to tors often try to increase built-up density and surface each flat. to gain more profit, neglecting the requirements for The management and maintenance of the techni- public spaces, green areas and facilities (Hien 2005; cal infrastructure in Linh Đàm, as in other NUAs, is Tran 2015). delegated to management boards whose duties, Linh Đàm was the first NUA project in Vietnam. organisation and responsibilities are defined by the Strategically located near downtown Hanoi and con- 2014 Housing Law. nected to major transport axes, Linh Đàm was built on During the construction phase and the first former paddy fields. The Urban and Housing years of the life of the buildings, the investor Development Investment Corporation (HUD) devel- nominates a management board to develop and oped the area after the masterplan was approved in manage the infrastructure in the whole area. When 1999. HUD is a state-owned enterprise operating all the flats are sold, the investor is no longer under the Ministry of Construction. While the plan- responsible for the maintenance of the technical ning of the area was centralised, the flats’ design and infrastructure, which is often handed over user construction were delegated to several subcontrac- groups, the residents’ management boards, which tors, who completed the project in 2002. In terms of represent the dwellers in each tower. Unlike resi- built environment, Linh Dam appears as a patchwork dent groups (TDPs), which are an extended arm of of Western building types (high-rise buildings), villas, the government, management boards only have housing blocks, and facilities planned for the upper- technical responsibility. They are voted for by the middle-class residents (Figure 5). people every 3–5 years, and they play a relevant The overlap of two alternative systems of water role in representing the users, negotiating with the supply, developed in two different periods, reflects property developer and the local authorities, and the increased density in the area. The first system is managing the fees for the maintenance of the an independent water supply network that makes buildings and related infrastructure. As Hien use of groundwater captured by ten wells controlled (2005) pointed out, the investors often delay the by the Linh Dam Water Company. The second sys- establishment of residents’ management boards to tem was implemented in 2017 in response to the maintain control over public space and to increase constant shortages due to the construction of new their profits through its privatisation (i.e. property tower blocks in the area. This was possible since the densification, rent). In Linh Đàm, after waves of investor, to increase profits, took advantage of the complaints, these residents’ organisations suc- presence of a nearby city park. Instead of providing ceeded in forcing private investors to build green facilities and open areas for the residents (parks and areas and playgrounds as opposed to a private playgrounds), it changed the land use of open areas gym and a tennis court (Tran 2015). 172 F. N. ROSATI ET AL. Figure 5. Linh Dam Condominiums (photo by the authors). Shifting territorial boundaries in spaces of The co-production between service users and reg- ular providers in NUAs is substitutive, since it is the co-production output of a synergic relationship between planning Technological change and innovation impact the authorities and the private sector to accelerate the reconfiguration of the urban form and the interac- process of urbanisation and service delivery. On the tions among urban activities and dwellers (Brotchie one hand, citizens of NUAs are expected to bear more 1984). At the same time, the evolution of the city plays responsibility and risks related to the high costs of a relevant role in the reconfiguration of technologies maintaining such large-scale infrastructures. In return, and their adaptation to social and material needs co-production guarantees them greater decision- (Bolay and Kern 2011). making capacity in the allocation of resources, lower What emerges from a transversal reading of the costs of repair and maintenance and, at the same three case studies is that the space of co-production is time, a certain degree of territorial control. not static but fluid, that is, capable of expanding and contracting from a technological (infrastructure) and managerial (service) point of view. These cases Discussion demonstrate a close relationship between the shifting In the case studies addressed in this paper, the differ - territorial boundaries within the built environment ent practices of service co-production have not been and the functioning and reconfiguring of the techni- cal infrastructures that deliver water and sanitation planned by policy or designed as such, but they have developed over the time in a co-evolutionary relation- services. ship with the built environment and its governing Three modes of urban incrementalism can be observed. These refer to Dovey and King (2011) organisations. As a result of constant spatial adjust- ments, incremental infrastructures and hybrid forms types of settlement growth. The first is inserting build- of water and sanitation service provision have ings into inhabited areas, as shown by the rise of tube houses in the open spaces of colonial villas. The den- emerged and evolved over time, thus inviting some reflections on the incremental nature of service co- sification of the urban landscape, invited by the state production (Figure 6). through a land reallocation policy and designed by INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 173 drivers space involved in water infrastructure sanitation infrastructure urban transformation co-production after co-production and public space control Case 1 French District complementary additive “invited” increase in territorial depth (public space) State: land realloca- tion plan branches controlled by residential groups have from one private plot to User: housing design the company until the been entitled to control over many private plots acces- the alleys and drainage and construction sible by shared alleys meter (plot) 1920s 1960s current substitutive Case 2 “popular” decrease in territorial complementary depth (public space) User: house exten- Nguyen Cong Tru sion branches controlled by the government has from one common space State: house-repair retired from its role as to private facilities; occu- the company until the cooperative scheme provider, entitling TDP to meter (block) pation of open space control public space and 1960s 1980s current drainage “invited” decrease in territorial substitutive Case 1 compensatory depth (public space) State: land use Linh Dam change permit from one public land for the government has de- new supply lines con- recreation activities, to Investor: new bu- nected to centralised legated control to private ilt-up land new residential towers water supply network investors, and lately to dwellers 1998s 2014s current Figure 6. Co-production development in the three case studies. Image produced by the author. households, has increased territorial depth through the Soviet blocks and the government-led process of the creation of alleys between the building blocks. densification of the French District. Both processes of This has in turn extended the water and sanitation urban transformation through densification have been infrastructure through the multiplication of house- taken multiple years, triggering a progressive adapta- holds’ technical devices (tanks) and branches (pipes tion of the building systems and the technical infra- and lines) connected to a newly built secondary drai- structure. However, the two case studies differ. In the nage and water pipe. French District, the reconfiguration of the water and The second type of densification is attaching, such sanitation networks has a cumulative character, as it is as the informal accretions that grow out of the the outcome of a series of small-scale, incremental Nguyễn Công Trứ building blocks. In this case, com- additions over time (Geels 2002). In Nguyễn Công Trứ, mon spaces have progressively been turned into pri- the reconfiguration of the water and sanitation infra- vate spaces. Unlike the previous case, the water structure has a disruptive character, as the switch from infrastructure expanded through the multiplication collective to individual facilities has partially dis- of branches directly connected to the original main mantled the original model of service delivery. trunk. In the second category, we find the construction of The third model of urban densification is settling on the new towers by property investors in Linh Đàm. This unbounded land. This is the case for the Linh Đàm sudden process of densification challenged the capa- NUA built by the property investor on the land city of the existing infrastructure system to cope with planned for a park. In this case, the incrementalism incremental changes (increasing amounts of water of the water and sanitation infrastructure is expressed requested by new dwellers and underestimating in the design of a concurrent water supply network, water pipe sections). This in turn triggered a redesign independent of the existing one. of the technical infrastructure, now based on the coex- These cases have further helped us to identify two istence of two systems for the water supply. main types of urban and technical incrementalism: a gradual and incremental change and a rapid and Complementary versus concurrent co-production discontinuous one (Levinthal 1998). In the first cate- gory, we find the step-by-step urban redevelopment The literature has shown that technologies mobilised triggered by the informal, individual-led extensions in in co-production can contribute to the amelioration of 174 F. N. ROSATI ET AL. the current conventional system, or they can intro- design. In this case, the infrastructure system has duce a further level of complexity into the network developed mainly from a decentralised solution (Jaglin 2012; Allen et al. 2017; Moretto and Ranzato (wells connected to an independent network) to 2017). Despite the divergences, the three cases show a more centralised (subnetwork) model. The expan- that technical hybridisation of the water and sanita- sion of the technical portfolio, due to the differentia - tion infrastructures leads to a co-existence of opera- tion of water resources (from groundwater to both tional networks, where large-scale centralised groundwater and surface water), should be under- infrastructure systems and small-scale decentralised stood as a wider programme at the municipal level. technologies are employed simultaneously to deliver The plan is to increase the use of surface water, mainly services to urban dwellers. due to the decline of the groundwater level and the In the first case, co-production arrangements can increasing contamination of arsenic, coliforms and result in complementary networks that citizens, nitrogen (Bui et al. 2018), and to extend the net- beyond the centralised infrastructure, adopt to worked infrastructure to those areas (mainly peri- improve access to water supply and sanitation. In urban) which are still disconnected. this sense, these self-help initiatives reconfigure and As we have seen, incrementalism contributes to complete unfinished networks through the means of producing more complex networks through different alternative, small-scale sociotechnical arrangements types of technical infrastructure. This incremental installed and managed by households (Zérah 2000). development allows us to navigate from more formal This model applies to both the tube houses in the to more informal ways of service provision and vice French District and the Soviet blocks in Nguyễn Công versa (Misra 2014), producing an assemblage of cen- Trứ, where the smaller networks at the level of the tralised and decentralised technical solutions, which house and block develop to correct gaps in service characterise the hybrid nature of service co- delivery (i.e. low pressure in the pipes, which does not production. allow the water to reach upper floors, as well as an often irregular and dirty water supply). Since, the densification processes in the Soviet neighbourhood The cyclical nature of service co-production and the French District were not sustained by ade- quate public infrastructure, co-production materia- The existing literature presents co-production as a linear lised in complementary strategies that allowed the process, and it tends to differentiate types of co- public network to reach the last built-up units. Those production according to the phase of the service cycle compensatory strategies represent what Kyessi in which citizens are engaged (Moretto and Ranzato (2005), referring to the technological upgrade of 2017). Co-production is generally disaggregated into co- water infrastructure in Dar Es Salam, would define as planning, co-design, co-delivery, and co-assessment, a ‘step-by-step’ development model (p. 10). The referring to the stage within the service cycle in which devices installed depend mainly on the financial capa- community and state actors work together to produce city of the household, as well as the characteristics of something of value (Nabatchi et al. 2017). the settlement where they are to be installed. These However, the technological incrementalism high- devices coexist with large-scale technical infrastruc- lighted in the three cases analysed in this paper ques- tures, as in the case of Linh Đàm, where, despite the tions a linear understanding of co-production. The employment of high-tech and large-scale solutions, analysis instead suggests a cyclical model of techno- groundwater contamination by arsenic forced house- logical change, where periods of incremental change holds to equip their flats with water filters, or to buy in the water and sanitation infrastructure are dis- bottled water. rupted by subsequent technological breakthroughs Technical hybridisation can also occur at larger (Anderson and Tushman 1990; Geels 2002). scales, such as at the scale of the neighbourhood, Incrementalism implies a feedback loop of disruption and it can result in the coexistence of concurrent and redesign of the technical infrastructure, which networks. In Linh Đàm, the existence of two water feeds co-production activities, as citizens are perma- networks can be explained by the increasing contam- nently engaged in fixing, disrupting and redesigning ination of underground water and the overpopulation their built environment and embedded infrastructure of the area, which was not foreseen in the initial systems. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 175 On the one hand, co-production and technical production of service delivery as individuals, groups incrementalism represent strategies to fix disruption. or collectives (Brudney and England 1983), and they Indeed, the co-produced arrangements that emerge can operate within different territorial boundaries, i.e. in the presented cases can be considered as socio- at the scale of the house, the street, or the neighbour- technical solutions that address the shortcomings of hood (Moretto et al. 2018; Faldi et al. 2019). On one existing infrastructure systems (water shortages, irre- hand, this affects the distribution of benefits (users are gular pressure, unsafe quality, or clogs of sewerage more incentivised to co-produce where the benefits pipes) during a transitory phase. The material reconfi - are personal) and, on the other, it affects the organisa- guration of the analysed co-produced infrastructures tional and management aspects of the co-produced largely relies on hybrid and/or decentralised systems service. van Vliet et al. (2005) suggested that the size able to replace or complement the infrastructure of an organisation depends on the scale of the tech- network. nology. Larger system scales may imply more com- On the other hand, co-production and increment- plex technical devices, and consequent changes in alism are also provoking disruption, as the growth of roles of users and their scale of involvement might the settlement can threaten the good functioning and lead to a change in service co-production schemes. proper maintenance of current sanitation infrastruc- The building systems of the three case studies tures up to the point where the infrastructure col- differ in terms of housing type as well as scale, ranging lapses. The more complex an infrastructure system from individual 4-storey dwellings (the tube houses becomes, the more severe the issues of maintenance, between the French colonial villas), 4-storey collective technical breakages and shortages that users and/or blocks (Nguyễn Công Trứ socialist housing) and 30- providers need to face. As the case of the Soviet storey blocks of flats (Linh Đàm NUA). As we have blocks in Nguyễn Công Trứ shows, despite a regular, seen, co-production does not develop in the same centrally controlled water flow in each block, house- way in different built environments. The related tech- holds continuously need to address inequalities in the nical infrastructure and devices employed vary with way they access water services. When the tenants of the scale of buildings. Available technology for co- the lower floors store too much water (by buying production depends on contextual features, such as tanks of greater capacity or providing their units settlement characteristics, land location, and distance with more than one tank), the tenants of the upper and/or connection to the centralised networks floors suffer from water shortages. (Moretto et al. 2018). Density and housing typologies In addressing and at the same time feeding disrup- should also be considered determinants of water and tion, co-production implies that citizens constantly sanitation co-production, as they influence the tech- redefine their spatial conditions and redesign the nological systems and devices that can be employed technical portfolio they employ. In this sense, we (Schramm 2011). understand that the co-production of water and sani- Hierarchical structures, such as water supply net- tation services is a self-feeding process which, by works, can be considered as assemblies, composed of nature, through breakages and adaptations, produces different parts ‘that lend themselves for control by innovation and further transformations. ‘Indeed, there separate agents in charge of the design or mainte- is some evidence to suggest that this kind of piece-by- nance’ (Habraken 1987, p. 3). The urban morphology piece adaptation is a leading cause of innovation, (plot, street, constructed space, open space) shapes acting a continuous feedback loop of experimenta- the typologies and control over water and sanitation tion, which, through many small increments in prac- service infrastructures, and it defines the opportu- tical knowledge, can produce large changes’ (Graham nities and constraints of incremental development. and Thrift 2007, p. 5). As we have seen in the high-density French District, the size of the alleys shapes the boundaries of the group co-production in the management of the ter- Technological incrementalism and co-production tiary drainage system, as well as limiting the possibi- at different scales lities of further incremental development. At the same The literature tends to differentiate co-production time, the size of the dwellings (mainly inhabited by according to the scale of user involvement in the one household) and the dwellings’ vertical growth service delivery process. Users can be engaged in co- triggers household co-production practices, such as 176 F. N. ROSATI ET AL. the installation and maintenance of septic tanks, Conclusions water pumps and storage tanks. In Nguyễn Công The relationship between planned built environments Trứ, the original design of the buildings and the and incremental spatial transformations has been dis- open space between blocks represented an opportu- cussed in three case studies through examples of nity for individual households to extend their private different urban, social and political visions that the space, while installing individual facilities (kitchen and city of Hanoi has embedded over the years. In these toilets). This situation, in turn, contributed to the case studies, incrementalism has been produced and switch from a group level of co-production of water scaled through material reconfigurations that experi- supply (which is still operating for the sanitary net- mented with new forms of sociotechnical infrastruc- work) to an individual one, through the multiplication ture due to changes in spatial patterns (Silver 2014). of small-scale technologies that are easily installed in In conclusion: first, the three cases have highlighted the blocks and suitable to the building’s height. a relationship between the evolution of co-production Incrementalism describes the spontaneous room- practices that deliver the water and sanitation services by-room process of accretion of the built environment and the changing control of state and community that extends the building systems horizontally (i.e. in actors in the production and maintenance of the the building blocks in Nguyễn Công Trứ) or vertically built environment. In particular, they have highlighted (in the French district tube houses). This process, dri- the role of community organisations (TDPs and resi- ven by the imperatives of resource accumulation, dents’ management boards) as central in reworking family ties and spatial conditions is more likely to the state’s boundaries (Koh 2006). This confirms the occur on small-scale plots (such as the tube houses), fluid nature of Vietnamese urbanisation processes, as they allow many people to engage directly in where popular, bottom-up impulses are incrementally designing, building and maintaining their built envir- accommodated within state-led dynamics of space onment (Brandt 1994). However, it seems that co- production (Koh 2006; McGee 2009; Tran 2015). production has transformed more consistently on Second, the empirical evidence presented in this the intermediate scale of Nguyễn Công Trứ, as the article confirms that infrastructures play a central role scale of the buildings and the public space organised in the incremental process of consolidation and recon- between the built-up areas has allowed both vertical figuration of the built environment. Infrastructures’ and horizontal expansions of the built space and the adaptability to changing spatial conditions influence overall redesign of the technical infrastructure the ways different forms of co-production initiatives employed. develop on different scales to guarantee and/or In large-scale property developments, this pro- improve access to water and sanitation services. cess of adaptation is not likely to develop in the Third, most of these incremental transformations same way, and the upgrade of water infrastructures trigger urban and technical hybridisation, as the den- might be more problematic and costly. In the NUA sification of the building systems requires an exten- of Linh Đàm, the difficulties in maintaining the sion or a multiplication of the technical portfolio in large-scale technical infrastructure are reflected in the service cycle. Hybridisation can take the shape of the complex system of operation of the manage- downscaling the key technologies and infrastructures ment boards, which have to coordinate many providing water and sanitation services. It can lead to actors, and to organise among the different towers. complementary or concurrent forms of co- At present, this built environment does not seem production, but it can also contribute to the disrup- adequate for urban incrementalism, as the building tion of existing technical systems and their substitu- codes strictly forbid any private transformation. tion with new ones. As a consequence of those However, all buildings are prone to change with processes, the centralised provision of water and sani- time. A process of infringement is already occur- tation and localised co-production has become mixed ring, as households are starting to set up shops up (van Vliet 2012). and workplaces in their homes and customising Finally, the cases have shown that such reconfi - the building’s ground floors to host activities and guration processes are not necessarily rapid. Instead, services for the neighbourhood. This may in future they are often the outcomes of a series of small, expand the existing water and sanitation incremental adaptations over time, whose cumulative infrastructure. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 177 effect can be at least as substantial as the effect of Jacques Teller is a professor of urban planning at the University of Liège, where he is leading the Local Environment abrupt innovations (Geels 2002). Both forms of inno- Management and Analysis (LEMA) research group. His PhD the- vation require users to ‘play an active role in adsorb- sis was dedicated to the modelling and management of urban ing, coordinating, and even orchestrating the form. He is presently a member of the Scientific Council of IRSTV disruption’ (Furlong 2014, p. 143). and Efficacity Research Institutes in France. However, despite being incremental and provi- Address: e-mail: jacques.teller@uliege.be sional, these sociotechnical arrangements can also be progressively replaced by others due to broader urban dynamics and environmental transformations. These ORCID factors make it very hard to evaluate the sustainability Luisa Moretto http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9437-7463 of co-produced arrangements. Moreover, the risks of Jacques Teller http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2498-1838 socio-spatial fragmentation linked with technical and urban incrementalism exist. This issue deserves further empirical and theoretical research. 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Journal

International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development – Taylor & Francis

Published: Dec 31, 2022

Keywords: Water and sanitation services; co-production; urban transformation; incremental infrastructures; Hanoi

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