|
|
|
Book Review
| Water, Time and European Cities: History Matters for the Futures. Edited by Petri S. Juuti and Tapio S. Katko. Tampere, Finland: WaterTime, 2005. 253 pp. Illustrations, maps, tables, figures, references. Free.
|
| This book is a valuable resource for historians who study past water systems and policymakers who plan future ones. It tries to create a usable past by connecting historical research with "futures research," a field of inquiry that analyzes the relationship between present-day decision making and alternative futures. Funded by the European Commission through the WaterTime Project, the volume examines the development of water systems in twenty-nine European cities, from Stockholm to Rome and Bucharest to Madrid. Thirteen individually authored chapters, one for each country, uncover the institutional decisions that produced these systems, and an analysis of the collected data by the editors transforms the volume into more than the sum of its parts. No comparable work exists. |
1
|
|
The editors aim their sometimes surprising conclusions at policy makers but draw on history for their insights. They argue, for example, that water development and management in Europe has often been a deeply local issue, making the understanding of a given city's distinctive history and politics essential to future planning. They also show that many city officials have made decisions about water systems in the absence of any historical context and without comparison to other systems, even though their choices would constrict future options for years to come. Perhaps most importantly for current debates about the privatization of water resources, the editors demonstrate that water is so immersed in specific political, economic, legal, and cultural regimes that cities cannot treat it as just another economic good and expect to avoid costly mistakes. |
2
|
|
Although the book's analysis is largely materialist, it does hint at some of the cultural attitudes toward water that inform policy making. The editors note, for example, that public utilities in the Germanic and Nordic countries tend to view water as a natural resource, while the private utilities of France and the United Kingdom are more inclined to see water as a manufactured good. At first glance, such assumptions about tap water's "naturalness" might seem too abstract to be of any real importance. But such ideas reinforce beliefs about whether clean water is a commodity or a common resource, a privilege or a right, and therefore carry the potential to shape water policy. |
3
|
|
The book's careful case studies and wise policy recommendations support its contention that "history matters for futures." That claim will surprise few historians, but it might be news to some in the water industry, which often ignores its own past when making decisions about its future. Most recently, the wave of privatization in the 1990s proceeded with a disregard for past experience that helped to trigger the current backlash against private management. This book provides a more historically informed decision making model, and the WaterTime Project is encouraging the model's dissemination by making the book available for free at http://www.watertime.net. The hope is that, with this volume in hand, European water planners will find it harder to move forward without first looking backward. |
4
|
|
Michael Rawson teaches American history at Stanford University. He has written about antebellum urban water systems and is currently working on an environmental history of nineteenth-century Boston. |
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|