City and Environment

4. Urban Infrastructure: Living with the Consequences of Past Decisions and Opportunities for the Future

4 Urban Infrastructure Living with the Consequences of Past Decisions and Opportunities for the Future FEW URBANITES think much about the network of infrastructure necessary to sustain city life, except when it stops functioning. Aclogged sewer, garbage strike, road under construction, power outage, or cut telephone line are rude reminders of our dependence on infrastructure. The engineering works that make the city livable also alter the natural environment. Sewers and reservoirs disrupt the hydrologic cycle, impervious surfaces increase the threat of flash floods, energy use disturbs the carbon cycle and pollutes the air. Infrastructure makes life possible in cities, but at costs to the natural environment. Alternatives to traditional forms of infrastructure can help reduce environmental impacts by using better materials and smarter designs, by modifying existing technologies , or by mimicking natural systems (using so-called “green infrastructure ”). Changing behavior—walking more often, for example, or turning off lights in unoccupied rooms—can be as effective as adopting new methods and materials, or more so. As infrastructure ages in many older cities, municipalities are working to design better, more efficient infrastructure while maintaining a degree of equity in service. Principles of sustainable development (the three e’s of environment, efficiency, and equity) should be applied to infrastructure development and maintenance. The American Heritage Dictionary defines infrastructure as “an underlying base or foundation, especially for an organization or system .” The term is applied to a variety of systems, including computer science, government, and corporations, but is most often associated with the physical structure that makes cities work. Roads, transit, water and sewer lines, telecommunications, and other public works are the infrastructure, the skeleton of services, that allows the system to function. Historian Joel Tarr (1984) likens infrastructure to “sinews,” the tendons of the city that bind together parts of urban areas into a functional whole. Examples of urban infrastructure include schools, prisons, post offices, libraries, and other public buildings. In this chapter we define urban infrastructure as the network of services (other than public buildings) that allows the circulation of people, materials, and information within the city. This includes roads, public or collective transit, water supplies, drainage, waste removal, lighting, electricity , and communications. Public works is often used as a synonym for infrastructure. Many cities operate and maintain infrastructure under departments of public works. These services may be public, meaning that they are owned and operated by some level of government for use by the community, but some urban infrastructure is privately owned and operated, even if it is regulated by government. Most services were at one time or another private enterprises. Poor service, uncoordinated systems, and the increasing complexity and size of cities in the late nineteenth century forced many municipalities to purchase private services and make them public (Tarr 1984; Teaford 1984). Now the pendulum is swinging back. Increasingly, many public services are being privatized or replaced by public-private partnerships, with some mixing of private and public ownership, management, design, or financing. Public works are part of urban infrastructure, but so are the traditionally privately owned services, such as wireless telephone service. All services are regulated by government, in part to ensure good service but also to meet environmental obligations. In the nineteenth century the public takeover of services happened because regulation was not effective in ensuring good service or minimizing environmental impact (especially as it affected human health). Streetcars were kept in poor condition and service was spotty, sewer lines were not planned in a systematic fashion and did not serve entire communities, and water and streams became polluted by industry and by inadequate drainage and sewer treatment. If regulation fails to maintain equity of service and minimize environmental impact, it is possible that history will repeat itself and governments will bring private services under public control. The urge to control services is strong because infrastructure is an absolute necessity for urban life. Since cities are usually the engines of national economies, the state has a strong interest in making sure they function properly to circulate capital, labor, resources, and information (Olson 1979). Besides its economic function, infrastructure is required to make cities healthy. In densely settled areas, infrastructure makes modern cities inhabitable. Many of the services we associate with infrastructure are 96 CHAPTER FOUR unnecessary in low-density rural areas and even small cities. Septic tanks work perfectly well and are in many ways more environmentally friendly (less energy- and...