Heterogeneous sanitation infrastructure and the governance of trade-offs in Cape Town: A critical institutionalist perspective

Critical urban scholars have demonstrated that urban dwellers in Southern cities depend on “heterogeneous infrastructure configurations” comprising grid, off-grid, and improvised infrastructures. However, urban infrastructure scholarship has begun to caution that heterogeneity involves trade-offs - such as overexploitation of ecological resources and fragmentation of service delivery. Yet, an explicit focus on how these trade-offs emerge in the context of sanitation infrastructure and how they are governed remains limited. This paper investigates trade-offs arising from sanitation infrastructure heterogeneity and how they are governed in three socioeconomically distinct neighbourhoods. It adopts a qualitative, comparative research design involving forty-five semi-structured interviews with residents, municipal officials, private-sector actors, representatives of civil society organisations, and researchers. Our analysis reveals that sanitation infrastructure heterogeneity involves fiscal, spatial, temporal, and equity trade-offs that vary across the three neighbourhoods and reflect uneven socio-spatial and infrastructural conditions. Drawing on a critical institutionalism perspective, we derive three key interrelated mechanisms through which actors govern trade-offs: institutional narratives which legitimise specific infrastructure interventions; negotiation and contestation among diverse actors; and institutional bricolage through which actors reconfigure rules and practices. We argue that the governance of trade-offs is not a linear, technocratic process but a dynamic, contested terrain where multiple actors continuously negotiate, adapt, and contest institutional arrangements. By foregrounding the governance of trade-offs, our study advances a spatially, politically and institutionally grounded understanding of heterogeneous sanitation infrastructure and highlights the need for policy approaches that address its distributive and governance implications. • Maps heterogeneous sewer infrastructure across Cape Town's neighbourhoods. • Shows fiscal, spatial, temporal, and equity trade-offs vary across neighbourhoods. • Identifies three governance mechanisms: narratives, negotiation, bricolage. • Policy debates should critically assess trade-offs of infrastructure heterogeneity.