Unreliable energy infrastructure is a defining yet understudied dimension of everyday precarity in informal settlements. This paper examines how infrastructural unreliability shapes lived experiences of energy insecurity in Qandu Qandu, a largely off-grid informal settlement in Cape Town, South Africa. Drawing on in-depth qualitative research, we analyse how residents navigate hybrid energy configurations comprising illegal grid connections, solar mini-grids and combustible fuels. We extend recent work on off-gridding by demonstrating that energy insecurity in informal urban contexts is structured not only by access, but by the intersecting qualities of reliability, affordability, safety and the emotional burdens produced by unstable infrastructures. Findings show that unreliability is pervasive, with weather-related disruptions, equipment failures and unpredictable informal markets generating layered insecurities that shape daily routines and heighten vulnerability. Residents respond through energy stacking, informal repair networks and mutual aid, exhibiting infrastructural agency while facing significant limits to adaptation. Unreliable energy services also produce acute mental and emotional strain, including anxiety, stress and health risks related to chronic illness management. We argue that these lived experiences reveal how off-gridding processes are embedded in structural inequalities and express forms of infrastructural citizenship. Addressing energy insecurity therefore requires community-centred, reliability-focused approaches to urban energy planning and governance.

In April 1945, a disturbing scene was played out at a petrol station in Piazzale Loreto, in central Milan. Mussolini’s body was displayed for all to see, hanging upside down, together with those of other fascists and of Claretta Petacci, his mistress. Directly, the scene showed the triumph of the partisans, whose efforts against the Nazis had greatly accelerated the liberation of the North of Italy. The Piazzale Loreto scene was both a victory sign and a reprisal. Nazis and fascists had executed various partisans and displayed their bodies in the same place earlier in the war. Indirectly, the scene was a symbolic reversal of what had until then been branded as historical certainty. Piazzale Loreto was a public urban spectacle aimed at showing the Italian people that fascism had ended. The Duce was now displayed as a gruesome symbol of defeat in the city where fascism had first developed. More than two decades of fascism were symbolically overcome through a barbaric catharsis. The concept of spectacle has been applied to Italian fascism (Falasca-Zamponi 2000) in an attempt to conceptualize and understand the relationship between fascist ideology and its external manifestations in the public, symbolic, aesthetic, and urban spheres. This paper aims to further develop the concept of fascism as a society of spectacle by elaborating a geographical understanding of Italian fascism as a material phenomenon within modernity. Fascism is understood as an ideological construct (on which the political movement was based) which was expressed in the symbolic and aesthetic realm; its symbolism and art however are seen as having been rooted in material, historical specificity. This paper will therefore trace its understanding of spectacle to Guy Debord’s (1995) ideas on the concept, and, following Walter Benjamin (1999), will argue for a consideration of fascist politics as an aesthetic politics which was nevertheless deeply embedded in ideology and the historical geography of a particular period and place. We also argue that while analysis of Italian fascism may distill salient defining characteristics which may be applicable to ‘fascist’ regimes elsewhere and in different historical periods, and may help to understand these regimes’ use of ideology and discourse, nonetheless this analysis remains rooted in a critical consideration of Italian fascism and wary of comparative approaches. Thus, while the work of Laclau (1977) and Laclau and Mouffe (1985, 1987) are utilized because of their broadening of our understanding of the concept of hegemony, central to an understanding of authoritarian regimes worldwide, this paper is cautious of extending its scope to an offering of comparative linkages. As Laclau himself noted (see Beasley-Murray 1998), his theorizations on hegemony were generated from a consideration of the historical-geographical specificities of Peronism in Argentina. One may posit the same observation with regards to Gramsci and his embeddedness in a position of opposition in fascist Italy. The position of this paper regarding fascism and its national context in Italy can be related to Mark Bevir’s (2000) idea of an “irreducible specificity of meanings”, whereby ideas and words are political and cannot be read apart from their contexts. When Gramsci talks about hegemony, he is talking about a concept. When he talks about fascism, he is talking about Italian fascism. In this paper, fascism will be interpreted as a society of spectacle based on an unstable ideological substratum. Firstly there will be an analysis of the problematic concept of fascist spectacle, based on an aesthetic form of politics, and its application to the arguments presented in this paper. Secondly, the paper will analyze the ideological roots of fascism and its particular characteristics, covering various salient and founding facets of fascist spectacle. Elite rule and the role of the leader will be discussed first of all, followed by fascism’s ambiguous connection with modernity Italian Fascism between Ideology and Spectacle

Informal settlements are often sites where state engagement in service provision is minimal or absent. To address chronic energy poverty in these neighborhoods, a diverse range of non-state actors (including NGOs, donor agencies, research institutions, and others) actively develop and operate decentralized solar energy interventions. This paper examines two such interventions in Cape Town, South Africa, using a heterogeneous infrastructure configurations (HICs) lens to explore how infrastructure, citizenship, and state responsibility are co-constituted in informality. We situate these examples within theoretical debates around the interlinkages between informality and infrastructure, asking how the perceived role of the state shifts when non-state actors provide services that are formally the state's responsibility. Our comparative analysis identifies three critical dimensions shaping these interventions: the evolving role of the state in complex stakeholder frameworks; the responsibilities and expectations placed on residents; and the ethical and political implications of non-state infrastructure delivery. We show how solar interventions can offer immediate and often innovative responses to infrastructural deficits, but also produce ambiguous governance outcomes, sometimes reinforcing the state's retreat rather than enabling its re-engagement. Furthermore, we reflect critically on the role of research institutions in these interventions, examining their influence on local power dynamics and long-term service delivery sustainability. We argue for a rethinking of energy governance in informal settlements that foregrounds inclusive planning, ethical engagement, and the state's enduring responsibility, even within hybrid or experimental delivery models.

The integration of vast volumes of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology into the built environment is changing the metabolism of urban spaces. Due to the presence of various AIs in urban systems, there are now more agentic forces influencing the trajectory of urban development and entangling with pre-existing biological intelligences. Because of AI's substantial environmental costs, more resources are now needed to satisfy cities’ technological appetite. Urban futures are also becoming more uncertain as private AI companies gain considerable power in urban governance through oligarchic schemes that leave citizens with no voice. In this paper, we bridge Urban Political Ecology (UPE) and urban AI literature, in order to critically examine the nature of AI as it intertwines with urban living and urban infrastructure. More specifically, we offer a threefold contribution to knowledge. First, we examine how the advent of urban AI is altering urban metabolism, zooming in on specific socio-environmental issues pertaining to energy, water and labour. Second, we discuss how the urban metabolisms altered by AI are reproducing uneven dynamics of development that are ultimately leading to different forms of injustice. Third and finally, we propose a potential course of action to politicize urban AI and intervene on its evolution.

Infrastructure inequities define modern cities. This Perspective reflects the viewpoint of a transdisciplinary group of co-authors working to advance infrastructural equity in low-income urban contexts. We argue that methodological silos and data fragmentation undermine the creation of a knowledge base to support coordinated action across diverse actors. As technological advances make it possible to ‘see’ informal settlements without engaging residents, our agenda advocates for (1) the integration of diverse methodological and epistemological traditions; (2) a focus on research that informs context-specific action; and (3) a commitment to ethical standards that center affected communities in efforts to improve infrastructure access. Low-income urban communities are facing infrastructural inequities. This Perspective advocates for an agenda that aims at reorienting infrastructure research by bridging methodological divides, integrating fragmented datasets and actors, and centering engagement with affected communities.

Informal settlements face significant infrastructural challenges, exemplified by limited electricity access in sub-Saharan Africa. We present insights from a 2020–23 research program in a South African informal settlement that highlighted the importance of systems thinking and sector coupling for integrating infrastructural and economic interventions to address the needs of informal settlement populations sustainably. In the program, this was done through solar off-grid electricity innovations and entrepreneurship training. This study’s novelty lies in its expansion of ‘sector coupling’ beyond its conventional technical definition, applying it to socio-technical integration across energy, entrepreneurship, and digital services in an informal urban context. It provides one of the first empirical demonstrations of how systems thinking and co-production can reframe energy provision as a foundation for multidimensional development in the informal city.

Providing energy access in “hard to reach” under- or unelectrified contexts like informal settlements or remote rural regions requires rethinking how we develop and finance energy access business models. While terminologies like “hardest to reach,” “reaching the last mile” or “leaving no-one behind” have increasingly been used within energy access and broader development discourses, different country and regional contexts present unique and practical challenges for deploying electrification models in these areas. These challenges are also intrinsically linked to the viability gap, which results from a disjuncture between end-users' ability to pay and revenues required to cover the cost of service. “Hard to reach” areas can comprise geographically remote regions like rural villages or urban informal settlements where households and businesses are precluded from grid electricity and other key infrastructure services due to financial, socio-technical and socio-political barriers despite being directly “under the grid.” In this paper we argue that contextual grounding is needed when exploring the intricacies of delivering energy access in contexts that traditionally lack formal service provision, security of tenure and material certainty. We furthermore argue that it is necessary to critically engage with discourses that characterize geographic remoteness as “un-electrifiable.” Notwithstanding the increased focus on leaving no-one behind in the international agenda, more pragmatic grounding is needed to understand and draw lessons from energy access in dynamic contexts. Drawing on the authors' current and prior experience working on research projects on off-grid energy and other infrastructures across sub-Saharan Africa, the paper compares the geographic contexts of urban informality and geographically remote contexts through six case studies from Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, South Africa, the Kingdom of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) and Madagascar. It explores the intricacies and practicalities of providing energy access in urban informal settlements, remote rural villages or displacement settings, and provides lessons for policy and practice.

Critical to the trajectory and outcome of urban sustainable energy transitions is the ability of government institutions to foster conditions for change and innovation. In this paper, a theoretical perspective combining state power and local governance capability is used as a lens to examine the transition of the energy system in South Africa based on semi-structured interviews with a range of relevant stakeholders, supplemented by analysis of published academic and policy literature. The discussion highlights uneven transitional pathways across the country caused by variations in 'capability', together with continuing conflicting interests within the system which require more politically-informed policy processes.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as an impactful feature of the life, planning and governance of 21st-century cities. Once confined to the realm of science fiction and small-scale technological experiments, AI is now all around us, in the shape of urban artificial intelligences including autonomous cars, robots, city brains and urban software agents. The aim of this article is to critically examine the nature of urbanism in the emergent age of AI. More specifically, we shed light on how urban AI is impacting the development of cities, and argue that an urbanism influenced by AI, which we term AI urbanism, differs in theory and practice from smart urbanism. In the future, the rise of a post-smart urbanism driven by AI has the potential to form autonomous cities that transcend, theoretically and empirically, traditional smart cities. The article compares common practices and understandings of smart urbanism with emerging forms of urban living, urban governance and urban planning influenced by AI. It critically discusses the limitations and potential pitfalls of AI urbanism and offers conceptual tools and a vocabulary to understand the urbanity of AI and its impact on present and future cities.

New digital technologies and systems are being extensively applied in urban contexts. These technologies and systems include algorithms, robotics, drones, Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) and autonomous systems that can collectively be labelled as Artificial Intelligence (AI). Critical debates have recognized that these various forms of AI do not merely layer onto existing urban infrastructures, forms of management and practices of everyday life. Instead, they have social and material power: they perform work, anticipate and assess risks and opportunities, are aberrant or glitchy, cause accidents, and make new demands on humans as well as the design of cities. And yet, urban scholars have only recently started to engage with research on urban AI and to begin articulating research directions for urban development beyond the current focus on smart cities. To enhance this engagement, this intervention explores three sets of questions: what is distinctive about this novel way of thinking about and doing cities; what are the emerging mutual interdependencies and interrelations between AI and their urban contexts; and what are the consequent challenges and opportunities for urban governance. In closing, we outline research directions shaped around new research questions raised by the emergence of urban AI.

China's Social Credit System (SCS) has attracted significant media and scholarly attention since the late 2010s. It is an emerging practice based on digital platforms linked to smart city development. In this chapter, we argue that intermediation is the main function of the SCS, and that it is based on a smart urban governance mode focused on 'smartmentality' (Vanolo, 2014). The SCS is instituting a new or at least revised moral order in urban life by introducing specific technical parameters and behavioural codes in order to distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' citizens. Consequently, the SCS may become a powerful datafication tool for governance, political legitimization, and societal management. The chapter analyses the SCS discourse proposed by the national government, as well as different types of municipal SCS adopted across two Chinese cities (Hangzhou and Tianjin). The chapter also explores in more depth how the SCS is operationalized as well as the role of market actors and urban residents.

Smart urbanism is an established research area in geography and the social sciences. We draw on 'worlding-provincialising' strategies identified in an Urban Studies Special Issue from February 2021 to explore how smart infrastructures, a form of smart urbanism, disrupt representations of informality and urban development in new and productive ways. Focussing on the disruptive or troublesome implications of smart infrastructures reveals site-level considerations for developing policy and practice, where acknowledging the nuanced context for its use can present opportunities for not only understanding energy transitions in the Global South, but also creates opportunities for cross-learning. Drawing on our collective insights on a solar mini-grid project in Qandu-Qandu, Cape Town, we sketch out three ways the disruptive aspects of solar energy can be helpful for re-building knowledge on the informal city by: (i) re-positioning notions of 'formal' and 'informal' infrastructure(s) in urban planning and policymaking; (ii) highlighting new avenues for citizen autonomy; and (iii) recasting the informal city as a site for continuous innovation and learning.

The 15-minute city has emerged as a key urban development theme in recent years, and especially since the Covid-19 pandemic. It has also become a focus point for tensions and debates over future urban trajectories, including over the role of automobility as the key technology that defines the experience of the urban. While the 15-minute city has become a widely-used concept by proponents and detractors alike, it remains vaguely defined and heavily contested. The paper makes two contributions: first, it reads plans for, and debates around, the 15-minute city as a form of post-political urbanism. Secondly, the paper introduces the concept of paranoid urbanism as a way of understanding urban tensions and conflicts linked to mistrust, fear and paranoia in the post-pandemic city. This novel concept goes to the heart of debates and tensions over the shape of the post-pandemic city, and over mechanisms of exclusion and inclusion that characterise it. The arguments presented in the paper aim to both chart areas for further research, and as provide critical pointers for policymakers and practitioners working in the area of urban development. To this end, the paper presents ten critical reflections aimed at both policy and practice, and at establishing new avenues of research on paranoid urbanism in the post-pandemic era.

This paper proposes the concept of the informality- energy innovation- finance nexus, as a theoretical framework to analyse micro-grid based urban off-grid energy access. The provision of energy access in urban informal settlements has received increased attention by scholars working on informality and energy in recent years. Recently, scholars have looked at the off-grid-urban informality nexus and have argued for the integration of off-grid electrification technologies in South Africa's informal settlements. Concurrently scholars have argued for more user centric business models for off-grid contexts. Off-grid technologies like micro-grids and stand-alone solar home systems have become an integral part of the energy landscape of energy access in Sub-Saharan Africa and can fill a key gap for unelectrified urban informal settlements. However, there remains a gap in the literature linking user-centric off-grid business, financing models and urban informality. This paper fills this gap and argues for greater contextual embeddedness and attention to the local context when implementing off-grid business models in settings of urban informality. This paper draws on the findings of the Umbane project, a pilot study on solar powered refrigeration for women owned enterprises connected a micro-grid in an informal settlement Qandu-Qandu in Cape Town, Khayelitsha. This paper uses mixed research methods, including semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurship project participants and a survey. This paper offers key insights from our practice-based work on implementing solar micro-grids in settings of informality and the contextual factors and drivers that shape the informality, energy-innovation and finance nexus.

In this paper, we argue using smart technologies beyond the grid disrupts the access and use of existing energy sources, with profound impacts on everyday social life. We show how off-grid smart energy solutions constitute their own politics when considering existing conceptualisations of urban infrastructures in geography and the social sciences. To expose its politics, or "micropolitics", we consider how tensions occur at the interface between infrastructures, where there are additions and modifications. We draw on an empirical example of Qandu-Qandu, an informal settlement in South Africa, to highlight how the placement, technical capabilities, and flexible financing options associated with off-grid solar energy create micropolitics with profound implications for everyday life. To conclude, we reflect on the value of using disruptions for understanding and enhancing equity in off-grid settings, contributing to the broader sustainability transitions narrative, and its "liveliness".