Jochen Monstadt

Title/Position: Full Professor; Chair of Governance of Urban Transitions
Department/Faculty/Institution: Department of Human Geography & Spatial Planning, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University
Degree(s)/School(s):
Ph.D. in Environmental Planning, Berlin University of Technology
Email: j.monstadt@uu.nl

MCRI Projects: A4: Infrastructure; B6: Water

Background: Jochen Monstadt is the Chair of Governance of Urban Transitions in the Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning at Utrecht University. Between 2007 and 2009, he was a visiting scholar at the City Institute at York University (CITY), where he completed a comparative study of energy and water management in Toronto, Los Angeles and Berlin. At Utrecht University he is leading the university-wide research hub on “Transforming Infrastructures for Sustainable Cities”. At the same time, he is one of the two directors of a larger research initiative on “Critical Infrastructures” at the Darmstadt University of Technology .

Research Interests: Jochen's research and teaching interests revolve around the contingent and place-based transformation patterns of cities and how these are mediated by technical infrastructures (energy, water, wastewater, solid waste, transportation, and ICTs). His specific interest is how the socio-technical design and governance of those critical systems shape the sustainability of cities in the global North and South.

Selected Publications:

Monstadt, J. & Coutard, O. (2019). Cities in an era of interfacing infrastructures: Politics and spatialities of the urban nexus. Editorial to the special issue in Urban Studies 56(11).

Monstadt, J. & Schmidt, M. (2019) Urban resilience in the making? The governance of critical infrastructures in German cities. Urban Studies. 56(11).

Huck, A. & Monstadt, J. (2019). Urban and infrastructure resilience: Diverging concepts and the need for cross-boundary learning. Environmental Science & Policy.

Guma, P.K., Monstadt, J. & Schramm, S. (2019). Hybrid constellations of water access in the digital age: The case of Jisomee Mita in Soweto-Kayole, Nairobi. Water Alternatives. 12(2): 725-743.

de Bercegol, R. & Monstadt, J. (2018). The Kenya Slum Electrification Program. Local politics of electricity networks in Kibera. Energy Research & Social Science. 41: 249-258.

Monstadt, J. & Schramm, S. (2017). Toward the networked city? Translating technological ideals and planning models in water and sanitation systems in Dar es Salaam. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 41(1): 104-125.

Monstadt, J. & Schramm, S. (2016). Changing sanitation infrastructure in Hanoi: Hybrid topologies and the networked city. In O. Coutard & J. Rutherford (eds.) Beyond the networked city: Infrastructure reconfigurations and urban change in the North and South. Routledge, pp. 26-50.

Monstadt, J. & Wolff, A. (2015). Energy transition or incremental change? Green policy agendas and the adaptability of the urban energy regime in Los Angeles. Energy Policy. 78: 213-224.

Monstadt, J. & Schramm, S. (2013). Beyond the Networked City? Suburban Constellations in Water and Sanitation. In R. Keil (ed.) Suburban Constellations: Governance, Land and Infrastructure in the 21st Century. Berlin: Jovis, pp. 85-94.

Monstadt, J. (2009). Conceptualizing the political ecology of urban infrastructures: Insights from technology and urban studies. Environment and Planning A. 41(8): 1924-1942.