Call for papers
Infrastructures and Compound Urban Crises: Mediation, Management, and Preparedness
20 – 23 May 2025 | International Roundtable Workshop | Limburg, Netherlands
Cities and urban regions are increasingly grappling with a surge of compound crises characterized by growing frequency, intensity, and interconnectedness [[i]; [ii]; [iii]; [iv]]. Urban crises are driven by global environmental changes, natural hazards, and resource scarcities, alongside rising inequalities, health emergencies, political polarization, populism, geopolitical tensions, terrorist attacks, and warfare. French scholars Edgar Morin and Brigitte Kern aptly described this phenomenon as “polycrisis” [[v]], where crises not only occur simultaneously or sequentially but are intricately linked, amplifying vulnerabilities within urban systems through their interactions [[vi]]. Complex feedback loops between crises and their underlying causes can generate unintended impacts, where attempts to address one crisis may inadvertently trigger, exacerbate, or accelerate other crises [[vii]].
As cities rely on complex, interdependent infrastructure systems, these infrastructures can amplify disruptions. For example, the City of Cape Town faces interrelated water, energy, and food crises. An unprecedented drought in 2015-2018 severely impacted agricultural food production and livelihoods, while frequent load shedding disrupts the functioning of water and sewer infrastructures, causing environmental pollution and harming food quality. Together with the COVID crisis, those infrastructure disruptions have amplified inherited inequalities of the post-apartheid city. Elsewhere, the hybrid warfare on electricity, transportation or water systems in Ukraine and Gaza exacerbates infrastructure crises, leading to chronic disruptions of urban lives, severe health problems and food insecurity, creating a perpetual cycle of interdependent crises. Finally, the recent Los Angeles wildfires overwhelmed local emergency response systems. Amplified by water shortages in the drought-stricken region, these fires triggered cascading infrastructure failures across Southern California and environmental pollution with severe impacts on urban health, ecosystems and the management of post-fire debris.
Unlike singular crises, compound crises emerge from multiple causes, unfolding across spatial, temporal, and institutional boundaries. They transcend sectoral policies and territorial jurisdictions, making governance particularly complex [[i]]. Moreover, they can involve nonlinear feedback loops that raise uncertainty about their impacts. Yet, studies indicate that governance responses to compound urban crises remain siloed, fragmented, and insufficient. Thus, scholars in risk studies [[viii]; [ix]; [ii]; [iii];], political science [[x]] and urban studies [[i]; [xi]; [xii]] have increasingly emphasized the need for significant governance reforms and called for more integrated and adaptive approaches. These reforms are crucial for preparing for, managing, and mitigating the impacts of compound and cascading crises.
Until today, however, the mediating role of technical infrastructures—such as digital networks, energy grids, water systems, and transportation networks—remains largely underexplored in debates about compound urban crises. Debates on critical infrastructures show how infrastructures can enable and exacerbate, but also mitigate and absorb, the ways in which urban crises unfold, interact, and escalate. On the one hand, disasters such as floods, hurricanes, wildfires, heatwaves, or malicious attacks on cities can be significantly exacerbated by infrastructure failures, e.g., by subsequent blackouts, failures of communication systems, or splintered access to critical systems. Immediate impacts as well as cascading effects of interacting infrastructure failures are seen as major challenges to effective risk management [[xiii]; [xiv]; [xv]]. On the other hand, infrastructure failures themselves—whether caused by maintenance and repair deficits, technical accidents, or systemic inefficiencies— can trigger cascading urban crises. As urban infrastructures become increasingly interconnected and interdependent, their complexity and tight coupling make them highly susceptible to even minor disturbances, which can quickly escalate into multi-infrastructural compound crises that transcend traditional functional and geographical boundaries [[xvi]; [xvii]].
Building on empirical studies on compound infrastructure crises in the South and North, the international roundtable workshop aims to deepen current academic debates on the nature of compound urban crises through the lens of technical infrastructures and to better link those debates with studies on governance of critical infrastructures. This call for papers invites scholars from various disciplinary and geographical backgrounds to explore the role of technical infrastructures in mediating compound urban crises and critically investigate the strategies of how cities prepare for, manage, and adapt to cascading infrastructure failures.
First, the objective is to explore how compound infrastructure crises unfold and cascade within and across variegated spatial and temporal contexts, how they are linked to other crisis phenomena, such as natural hazards and environmental change, financial crises, political polarization, or rising inequalities. Second, we propose to address the complexities involved in governing compound infrastructure crises. Papers will engage with the the fragmented institutional arrangements, the epistemic uncertainty and the power dynamics and contestations in coordinating various state actors, utility companies, private actors, users, civil initiatives etc., involved in building resilience within different spatial and temporal contexts. Finally, we encourage authors to move beyond the problematization of compound crises toward engaging with propositions for urban and infrastructure governance. Besides critical empirical analyses, authors are asked to speak directly to policy implications and discuss alternative governance approaches to compound infrastructure crises.
Embracing these objectives, contributions may focus on, but are not limited to some of the following questions:
- Spatiality of compound infrastructure crises: How do crisis dynamics and governance approaches vary across geographical contexts, e.g., within urban regions or across cities in the Global North and/or South? What are the spatialities of cascading infrastructure crises, and how do they relate to territorial jurisdictions? How do spatial and social inequalities, such as uneven access to infrastructure, exacerbate the impacts of compound crises on vulnerable populations? Are certain spaces or communities privileged in critical infrastructure protection? What spatial strategies (e.g., regional governance, decentralized infrastructures) can help mitigate compound infrastructure crises?
- Temporality of compound infrastructure crises: How do compound infrastructure crises evolve over time, from their initial triggers to cascading and secondary impacts? What temporalities are most critical for understanding how these crises unfold? How do past decisions regarding infrastructure maintenance, investment, technological design, or austerity policies shape the trajectory of these crises? How are past crisis experiences (ab)used to design future infrastructures (and how can they be used)? How do cities’ short-term crisis management strategies interact with or conflict with long-term planning for resilience? How do the temporal dynamics of failure and recovery vary across interconnected infrastructure systems (e.g., energy, water, and transportation), and how do these sectoral temporalities shape crisis management? What temporalities, asynchronisms, and temporal misalignments do infrastructure crises and their governance reveal?
- Politics of resilience: How do power dynamics, contestations, or populism influence decision-making and resource allocation in mitigating and managing cascading infrastructure failures? How do grassroots initiatives or social practices beyond, complementary to, or against public policies contribute to building resilience? And conversely, how do existing institutional frameworks, economic and political interest groups and social practices perpetuate or amplify urban vulnerabilities to compound crises?
- Crises as drivers of innovation: To what extent do infrastructure failures create a sense of urgency among urban stakeholders, accelerate learning and decision-making processes, and drive transformative urban and infrastructural reforms [[xviii]; [xix]]? What are the long-term effects of crisis events regarding preparedness and risk mitigation strategies?
- Governance of compound infrastructure crises: How do institutional fragmentation and jurisdictional boundaries challenge the governance of interconnected infrastructure systems during compound crises? What governance innovations are emerging to improve coordination among diverse actors (e.g., state agencies, utility providers, private companies, civil society, and local communities) to mitigate, prepare for and cope with crises? Can we identify integrated or adaptive governance/planning approaches that reflect infrastructural interdependencies? What are their potentials, barriers and pitfalls? How do governance frameworks address epistemic uncertainty and prepare for nonlinear feedback loops inherent in these crises?
We particularly invite empirical papers with conceptual, methodological, and critical ambitions. We welcome case studies focusing on cities and urban regions in the global North or South, comparative work across urban contexts, and studies of urban and infrastructural transformations in historical and contemporary contexts.
This international roundtable workshop will bring together scholars from different disciplines to reflect on the increasing complexities of urban infrastructure governance from 20 to 23 May 2025 in the 16th-century country estate Winselerhof in the Southern Netherlands (near Maastricht and Aachen). The submitted papers will be distributed in advance and discussed in detail at the conference in a roundtable format with commentators and open floor debates (approx. 40 minutes per paper). Participants will not present their individual papers. Instead, the papers will be summarized and commented on by two discussants in each session to allow for creative discussion. Participants are expected to have read all the papers before the workshop. The roundtable workshop will result in the publication of a selection of papers in a themed issue of an international peer-reviewed journal or in an edited volume.
Please send a 300-word paper proposal by 7 March to
If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us: Jochen Monstadt, j.monstadt(at)uu.nl, Shaun Smith, s.r.smith(at)uu.nl, Katharina Hölscher, k.holscher(at)uu.nl, and Francesca Pilo', f.pilo(at)uu.nl, Utrecht University.
[i] Westman L, Patterson J, Macrorie R, et al. (2022) Compound urban crises. Ambio 51(6): 1402-1415.
[ii] Cutter SL (2018) Compound, cascading, or complex disasters: what's in a name? Environment: science and policy for sustainable development 60(6): 16-25.
[iii] Pescaroli G and Alexander D (2018) Understanding compound, interconnected, interacting, and cascading risks: a holistic framework. Risk Analysis 38(11): 2245-2257.
[iv] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2023) Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Geneva.
[v] Morin, E and Kern AB (1999) Homeland Earth: A Manifesto for the New Millenium. Advances in Systems Theory, Complexity, and the Human Sciences. Cresskill, N.J: Hampton Press.
[vi] Oloukoi G and Wahab B (2024) Emerging Global Issues: Poly-crises and Poly-blessings. In: Oloukoi G, Wahab B, Bununu Y, et al. (eds) Emerging Global Issues: Trends and Urban Planning Responses. Abuja: Nigerian Institute of Town Planners, pp. 3-20.
[vii] Davies M and Hobson C (2023) An embarrassment of changes: International Relations and the COVID-19 pandemic. Australian Journal of International Affairs 77(2): 150-168.
[viii] Fassert C, November V and Rey-Thibault C (2023) Facing nonscalability: are risks still ‘risks’ when compound and catastrophic? Journal of Risk Research 26(11): 1157-1173.
[ix] Lawrence M, Homer-Dixon T, Janzwood S, Rockstöm J, Renn O, and Donges JF (2024) Global polycrisis: The causal mechanisms of crisis entanglement. Global Sustainability, 7, e6.
[x] German Political Science Association (DVPW) (2024) Politics in times of Polycrisis. 29th Academic Convention of the DVPW, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, September 24 – 27, 2024.
[xi] Swilling M and Annecke A (2012) Just transitions. Explorations of sustainability in an unfair world. Tokyo: United Nations University Press.
[xii] Soldak M, Mezentsev K, Batunova E, Haase A, Haased D. (2024) Emergent urban resilience in Ukraine: Adapting to polycrisis in times of war. Ekonomichna ta Sotsialna Geografiya 92: 7-13, https://doi.org/10.17721/2413-7154/2024.92.6-13.
[xiii] Little RG (2002) Controlling cascading failure: Understanding the vulnerabilities of interconnected infrastructures. Journal of Urban Technology 9(1): 109-123.
[xiv] Pescaroli G and Alexander D (2018) Understanding compound, interconnected, interacting, and cascading risks: a holistic framework. Risk analysis 38(11): 2245-2257.
[xv] De Bruijne M and van Eeten M (2007) Systems that should have failed: Critical infrastructure protection in an institutionally fragmented environment. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 15(1): 18–29.
[xvi] Boin A and McConnell A (2007) Preparing for critical infrastructure breakdowns: The limits of crisis management and the need for resilience. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 15(1): 50–59.
[xvii] Monstadt J and Schmidt M (2019) Urban resilience in the making? The governance of critical infrastructures in German cities. Urban Studies 56(11): 2353–2371.
[xviii] See: Hommels A (2018) Re-assembling a city: Applying SCOT to post-disaster urban change. In: Kurath M, Marskamp M, Paulos J and Ruegg J (eds) Relational planning. Tracing artefacts, agency and practices. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 205–227.
[xix] Bijker WE, Hommels A and Mesmann J (2014) Studying vulnerability in technological cultures. In: Hommels A, Mesman J and Bijker WE (eds) Vulnerability in technological cultures: New Directions in Research and Governance. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, pp. 1–26.
