Infrastructures are the sociotechnical systems that make cities work. The invisible systems that bring water and heat from somewhere else to make bathing possible are water and energy infrastructure. Hellene’s daughter’s very reasonable expectation of her own bathwater is easily accommodated by the water and energy networks that connect her flat to the estate, the estate to London, and London to rivers, groundwater and faraway gas fields.Īnd yet, when Hellene sees the water go up and down, she knows the changes in her household are having an impact somewhere else, and she feels bad about it. The boiler runs on gas connected to London’s gas supply network, which in turn, is connected to pipelines that span Europe. The same system provides heating to radiators in each flat. The water for the bath in Hellene’s flat is heated in a boiler room which serves Hellene and her neighbours. She is not on a metered supply so she does not pay for the extra bath water, but she says she finds it “depressing to see it go up and then down.” She also faces the disincentive that, as a tenant, she may have to reverse any changes she makes inside her flat if she moves out.Īs a consequence, after her son has bathed, Hellene watches hot water disappear down the plug hole into London’s overburdened sewer system, before refilling the bath with more hot water for her teenager. Hellene feels a shower would be less wasteful but lacks the space and means to add one. We don’t often think about the infrastructure required to supply, remove and treat the water we put in our baths. When her children were young, they would happily share a bath, but now her teenager refuses and demands her own bath water. Hellene (a pseudonym) is a social tenant on the Meakin Estate in south London and her flat, like most of her neighbours’, comes with a bath but not a shower. ![]() ![]() ![]() The bath in Hellene’s flat is a source of concern to her.
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