This short commentary starts from the observation that, until recently, most research addressing infrastructures within urban studies has largely downplayed crucial environmental resource issues. While urban and broader inequalities in and through the distribution of resource flows have been examined, especially within an urban political ecology perspective, other issues, fundamentally associated with resource qualitative and quantitative limitations, largely haven't. We therefore argue in this paper that resource issues, broadly construed, can and indeed should be explicitly addressed within an extended conceptualization of (urban) metabolisms. This leads us to re-envisage the frameworks through which urban infrastructures and the provision of essential services should be analysed. We thus advocate for an update of the urban political ecology agenda that brings resource issues, in their material, political and spatial dimensions, to the centre of scientific attention. * Keywords Infrastructure, essential services, resources, metabolism, splintering urbanism * We wish to thank JUT's two anonymous referees for their constructive comments, which helped us clarify the core argument of this short 'commentary'.