Infrastructure

Architecture 209X, Spring 2007

Words and Cities: The rhetoric and meaning of statistically improbable phrases

Nicholas De Monchaux

Qing Wang

Infrastructure

Infrastructure, a word is somehow hard to understand. If you look up in an English-Chinese dictionary, you probably will find a strange interpretation like this: basic and fundamental organization or structure. For most people, this explanation doesn’t help understanding what infrastructure means indeed. Now, we know infrastructure includes all the transportation, public facilities and communication system in the urban context. In a word, it is the network of the city like the vein of human body. We know how important the vein to the body, so we can same know how important the infrastructure to the city. The city needs grow relying on its network. After industrial revolution, and steam engine and the internal-combustion engine spurs the growth of city. The rail roads expand rapidly while the city becomes larger. To some extend, the history of modern city development is a history of the evolution of infrastructure. It determined the speed of the growth of city development. The technology enforced the evolution of infrastructure developing. Back to 19^th century, the industrialized products needs a high efficient transportation to deliver to the market far away. The rail roads and steamships realized this demands. As this change predominated the whole world, the globalization was formed. In the present, information technology accelerates this change into a much deeper level. The infrastructure connects everyone on the earth with cables or even invisible waves. The distribution of information blurs the boundary between urban and suburban, west and east. The city grows into their boundary and the suburban disappears. As a result of urbanization, the whole globe becomes a big city with the connection of infrastructure. Because of the characteristic of infrastructure, it is always changed by the technology development in different time. The current form of infrastructure is based on the automobiles. The roads system connected every cities and parking space occupied in the corner of every several blocks. It seems becoming the permanent structure of our city. It won’t be changed until another emerging technology changed the infrastructure, like internet and wireless technology. The advent of internet will change the appearance of our world once it matures.

sha_week5

In reading the McKibben article, I found myself reading it as I do for my creative writing workshops, picking out the language and phrases used to enforce the narrative. As both the Sutcliffe and McKibben articles address infrastructure (energy + transportation), they both take different approaches in describing the underlying framework -- the infrastructure -- of their infrastructures. Sutcliffe goes about describing the progress of street transport by re/searching backwards through time, and by holding the finger on the technological advances finds himself branching off into the resultant [or determinant] forces that move forwards in time. The pure amount of dates in his article set up a rhythm of fact that is adamantly unphysical. McKibben travels through his system of energy by conflating space and scale, wandering through the general to the specific, from the statistic to the anecdote. One of my favorite tip-offs to this was when McKibben mourns the inadequacy to describe scale in English, then proceeds to having "a big lunch," seeing a big dam, and then a "bigger dam". Through this distortion of scale and space [casually strolling from New York to Quebec to Brazil to Arizona] McKibben recognizes the scale-lessness of infrastructure as well as its secrecy ["Brazilian oil lights my lamp more than one hour in each twenty-four"].

How does this then tie into our reading of infrastructure? In Jeanette's lecture a few hours ago, she clearly defines three scales : architecture, urbanism, and infrastructure. She asks at the end that we uproot ourselves and consider situations that exist in all three, but how do we confront [or even comprehend] something that is beyond scale?

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INFRASTRUCTURE

The term infrastructure is so central to the understanding, and the functioning of our species in its current state, that it is hard to imagine the days before this term came to common use. How can one conceive of a functioning Earth without infrastructure? Even wildlife make use of natural infrastructure – ecological, water, food resources, etc. All of these fit under the definition of infrastructure as a system of organization. But our conception of the word is more closely knit with artificially created systems, man-made structures that extend or disrupt natural systems to bring service to man. For example Bill McKibben, in his article, articulates the energy infrastructure by taking the reader from Northern Canada’s ‘La Grande’ to Brazilian oil refineries, and the all the way back to Arizona’s uranium veins. His aim to talk about how energy is delivered to New York City extends to include both North and South America. This only reinforces how depended our species is on the various infrastructures that enable our livelihood. But what is more interesting is how dependent these infrastructures are on other infrastructures to function properly. The energy infrastructure is dependent on a mix of hydro, oil, coal, and atomic power infrastructures, in addition the actual high voltage powerline network. And all of that shifts and changes depends largely on the faring of the economic infrastructure. What a Brazilian worker is doing might be completely dependent on the energy requirements of a city 2000 miles away, and he might not know it. But its these invisible lines of connection that gives infrastructure such an important role in our lives, so it is no wonder that they become critical resources for a country to protect, such as dictated in Executive Order EO13010. What is marvelous about infrastructure is how it builds on top of other infrastructures until what exists can no longer be untangled – as it is so complex and cross relying. That is what gives us unprecedented interconnectivity in the world as we know it. And the funny thing is most of us don't realize this - until there is a catastrophic failure in one infrastructure, and a cascading, domino effect happens that reaches to each of our homes, such as a blackout.

infrastructure

In contrasting the writings between Antony Sutcliffe and Mckibben’s writing, infrastructure in terms of roads and energy is depicted in relation to other form of infrastructure that are not typical of a conversation concerning architecture. There is an implication that infrastructure is part of a system where these components are interdependent of each other and whose ramifications effect other parts of the system. For example Sutcliffe describes the usage of roads as a principle of economics; supply and demand (pg. 24). In some cases he depicts the success of a certain mode of transportation or infrastructure as being dependent on economy and not on innovation. “In other British cities…the horse car, with its fares substantially undercutting those of the omnibus, took over from the omnibus to provide the main means of urban mass transport.” (pg.26) Politics also according to Sutcliffe played a role. Due to the speeds limits imposed by authorities, the usage of the omnibus was hindered (pg. 28). Sutcliffe’s attitude of the emergence of infrastructure is based on having the right conditions. He describes these conditions when speaking about Virginia. “The development of an efficient technology of mechanical traction had to await the time when a city of moderate size would offer favorable conditions” (pg. 32). The way Sutcliffe describes the success of these new modes of infrastructure is very much akin to that of evolution, in which something can be successful if it finds its right niche.

We can see a similar understanding of infrastructure and the variables that effect it in Mckibben’s writing for the New Yorker. Phrases that he uses in relation to infrastructure are “Energy Fuel’s staking program, oil prices, B.L.M, Arizona-wilderness bill” just to say a few. But what is most surprising about the article was the view the writer took in juxtaposing nature and infrastructure as symbiotic elements connected through chemistry, science, and numbers. Most of his descriptions of energy are precluded with an idea of largeness, typically described through numbers and strong words like “force”. For example he writes “as a rock is being blasted…hauling ore to the surface so it can be trucked to a mill in Blanding, Utah three hundred miles away. There it is ground up and made into “yellow cake” – U3O8” (pg. 55). Much of his writing is the description of infrastructure as a friendly but strong companion of nature in which math and science is used to rationalize the relationship between the two.

Infrastructure

It tolls for the city...

“No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." John Donne – Meditation XVII from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, 1624

The city is an ancient infrastructure. Since, perhaps, the inception of the machine of the human collective that we discussed last week, since we began to rely on the hunting and gathering of others, we began to develop a socio-political and economic infrastructure. McKibben lyrically traces the interdependencies inherent in the delivery of electrons from NY wall to toaster, navigating from Utah uranium mines to arctic Taiga. Sutcliffe begins to trace the relationships of purportedly different, but inexorably connected systems in the development of the street-car, specifically in the late 1800’s at the advent of the industrialized age and modern theories of planning. “The creators of this [modern] phenomenon of planning saw decentralization as one of their prime objectives: planning may thus be seen as, to some degree, a product of the urban transport revolution.” (Sutcliffe, 23) Perhaps it is the first act of city development to admit John Donne’s all too familiar maxim above and begin a process of decentralization and urbanization.

Sutcliffe writes, it seems, from the standpoint of an economic determinist. “…[I}nnovation and invention… are the direct product of supply-demand relationships.” (ibid, 24) The apparent contradictory divergence of technological progress and economic welfare is explained socially, and is indicated by rising per capita urban land rent. (ibid, 28) The use of indicators and an appeal to a different system belies a deterministic, systemic view of technological progress.

“Thus, behind what might appear at first sight to be a technological problem, we can discern a confrontation of interests in the area of political economy… a compromise solution is most likely at the time when, and in the place where, the new technology is likely to produce a net increase in the social product.” (ibid, 36)

The idea of a ‘social product’ seems to me to be a distinctly progressive one. As our infrastructural systems become intertwined, it becomes hard to tell where one begins and one ends. Social welfare and technological progress become commodities whose relationships can be measured by simple metrics, in this case urban land rent.

The language of the text reveals a vantage of technology not at isolated events, or deus ex machina but as discrete elements in the greater infrastructure, with potentials. “…[T]he steam railway… was susceptible a priori of being adapted to the needs of movement within cities.” (ibid, 24) The seems to imply that the railway in it’s participation in the infrastructure could necessarily be adapted to serve other parts of the infrastructure. A defensible position to be sure, but perhaps the danger in the sentiment of a priori progress is highlighted in the following notion. “To some extent, therefore, the increase in usage suggests that a latent demand existed for the improvement of urban transport before electrification was carried out.” (ibid, 24) Following this line of logic to its absurdities, should we then have all highways 10 lanes wide because traffic levels will rise to fill them? Surely if not everywhere, then in downtown areas where there is more traffic demand? Sutcliffe presents a deterministic infrastructure of technological progress, which may adequately address the needs of the drivers and the residents and provide a perfectly reasonable solution, but I am left asking, where is the room for the designer in the systemically determined urban experience? At what level, and with what systems, is our agency most meaningful?

Infrastructure, Forrest

When I first hear the word "infrastructure," visions of galvanized steel, asphalt, and rubber wires immediately flash into my mind. Subsequent categorization of this vision may fit the generalized cultural understanding: mundane objects in our built environment that service our lives: roads, power lines, water tanks--the engineered rather than the designed. The cliche of not seeing the forest through the trees applies; these objects comprise a larger "underlying framework or features of a system or organization," as defined by dictionary.com. Bill McKibben elegantly articulates this point by tracing the breadth and scope of how electricity reaches the New Yorker's electrical socket. From oil mining in Brazil to huge hydraulic projects in Canada, the delivery of electricity to New York City becomes an elaborate and multivariable system at the whim of many influences.

Anthony Sutcliffe further elucidates the complexity of an infrastructural system in his research on the mechanization of street transportation. The core of his argument is that not only do these external influences affect infrastructural decisions / changes, the infrastructural decisions / changes also affect the external influences. His most lucid example is the streetcar infrastructure and rent values, namely that building streetcar infrastructure allows a city geographical growth, lowering density and, subsequently, property values. Resorting back to infrastructure's definition as the "framework of a system or organization", then the streetcar network functions much like the telephone pole in the broader context of the city. If "infrastructure" is defined as more than a streetcar rail, why should "infrastructure" be less than the whole streetcar network and the economics that drive its expansion? The potential changes of scale in infrastructure surely prompted Buckminster Fuller's suggestion of a global power grid. According to this definition, a city itself comprises an infrastructural system, with streetcars being but components, just as Clinton's Executive Order EO 13010 establishes an infrastructure for defending critical infrastructures. In this regard, our current definition of infrastructure with respect to cities should understand that even infrastructures as complex systems, each influencing one another with various (and variously scaled) results.

Infrastructure ,Bin Wang

Infrastructure was born with cities. Or, it was born before cities.

If city, say, is a human body, then infrastructures are blood vessels (roads, bridges, internet, etc). Without these vessels, blood and power can not been transported to the city organs, hence the city has no possibility to work normally.

What’s more, infrastructure also include the blood making organs (mines, power stations, etc), sometimes the most powerful architecture in the world. When I try to imagine there are millions of mines deep down underground, some are roughly the size and shape of a sixty-story or more skyscraper, and those huge industrial towers more then 120 feet tall, I feel like there is another world under our nose as well as underneath our feet.

Infrastructures are even un-visible. For example, the satellite signals are everywhere. The earthquake happened in Taiwan several months ago made the undersea cable broken, so I lost the on-line contact with my family and friends in China. It’s so amazing that the infrastructure connected between China and American actually happened undersea and in the sky. A picture appears in my head is an earth wrapped by all kinds of cables, (visible and un-visible) which we called “globalism”.

Globalism made the earth small and easily to communicate. However, it also made the earth more fragile. Since every parts of the world are connected so tightly, it easily to imagine what will happen if some connections lost the function.

The development of cities hence relies on the healthy and convenient infrastructure. Actually the cities are changed with the development of infrastructure. It is no surprise to know that “planning may thus be seen as, to some degree, a product of the urban transport revolution.” (Street Transport in the second Half of the Nineteenth Century: Mechanization Delayed?) Probably every transforms of the cities witness a revolution of the infrastructure. The new technology competes with the old ones, providing advantages and conquering disadvantages, then fixes (sometimes totally changes) the system, just like the renew of human organs. Afterwards the cities run better and wait for the next revolution. That is the way we come from and will go to the future. What we only need to ask is “What is the next step?”

Infrastructure_Anders

The definition of infrastructure according to dictionary.com is “the underlying framework of a system or organisation”. I find Wikipedia’s definition as one of the best: “Infrastructure is generally a set of interconnected structural elements that provide the framework supporting an entire structure”.

In 2007 we depend on a number of infrastructures to work without failure. These critical infrastructures include telecommunications, electrical power systems, gas and oil storage and transportation, banking and finance, transportation, water supply systems just to mention a few of them. We can divide threats against these into to categories, physical threats and cyber-threats. Because private companies own many of these networks it is of high importance that the government and the private sector work close together to maintain the national security.

Anthony Sutcliffe’s article describes the development of the street transport. The unusually rapid economic growth in the later 1890s and the early years of the 20^th century go close together with the discoveries within the field of mechanical engineering. This economic growth was associated with a new phase in the urbanisation of the industrialized world. “This phase was associated with the development of the theory of modern planning and, to a large extent, the practice of planning” (p23). Sutcliffe suggests that this development is the product of the urban transport revolution. The need for movement within the cities. First there were attempts with the steam engine and later on the transport system which relayed on electric power (first public electric trolley system in Richmond, Virginia). The improvement of the transport network (infrastructure) increased the accessibility of the urban land.

From the New Yorker article we realize how complex the building of a water power plant can be. They needed to create new roads and airplane runways on the frozen lakes just to be able to transport all equipment to the building site. All these efforts just to maintain the modern society’s energy consumption safe.

infrastructure_reading response

Usually infrastructure means public system but everyone can use. In these days, infrastructure is so important because to develop the parts of any technology, we need stronger infrastructure. For example, without fast internet cable, new technology of telecommunication could be useless.

In this meaning, as definition said, infrastructure is basic system. It’s for functioning of a community or society (dictionary. Com, 1). Infrastructure means usually water supply, streets, highway that is directed under by government or state. Even though we could recognize, for social aspect, sharing the system goes to infrastructure’s meaning.

However, in the article, street transportation, it doesn’t mean system but also movement. With the example of railway, this article explained infrastructure devoted to the needs of movement within cities (24). From 1870s to 1880s, many cities started building the railway even though its speed was not as much as fast horse’s. However, for the mechanization of shipping, railway system needed and rail way could be developed more and more. Within the cities, horse was attractive, however, the transforming the any goods between cities, rail way was useful for amount and speed, too. After then, rail way system brought huge change of distribution transportation and the life style differences.

Because the effect of infrastructure is so strong, it is usually a job for government. As executive order EO 13010, all most all department need to work together for any case of infrastructure. It could bring huge change of civilian life with small fault or success. So government tries to go through carefully. This compromised opinion will decide programming the infrastructure even though it will take long time because it could be a social system itself.

in newyorker article, without saying infrastructure, the author explained about the concept of it. Referring familiar object, the author make us imagine how or what infrastructure could be. its explanation is so easy to understand like page 44
(26 feet in diameter,with smooth concrete walls, the tunnel~~) For this article, I could understand infrastructure in a common sense and could go further to architectural view.

Infrastructure is a kind of social aspect in capitalism country to balance the social system and economic profit. So even though sometimes it doesn’t work for every social people, their initial intention was started for restoring the benefit to people. Sometimes huge infrastructure disturbs our racing of development. However, I and you could use high ways, rail ways and internet because of infrastructure system,

infrastructure

‘The basic, underlying framework or feature of a system or organization’
Like the definition in dictionary, infrastructure is the concept related with system and it has a big premise that human exploits or uses it. So, purpose of infrastructure is focused on operating issues.

Wikipedia refers infrastructure to the underlying system of civil, municipal, public works, information technology, political and social networks. National infrastructure is more precisely divided into sectors; banking and finance, transportation, power systems, information and communications, law enforcement, government services, fire, emergency health services and national water supply. Executive order EO 13010 marks the direction for operating USA’s infrastructure in terms of organization power.

Anthony Sutcliffe’s article is interesting to me because it shows an example how a physical infrastructure, street transport was applied in cities in aspects of development of technology and its applying. New knowledge, for instance, transport revolution had power to be able to change entire urban logics and patterns. However, it is also affected in the social formation such as structure of rental value. It can be transformed into property right, but only through a struggle between the existing owners of property and those excluded from it. (Street Transport, 36) Therefore, we need to recognize a kind of infrastructure itself is a second structure of other infrastructures.

Article ‘The New Yorker’ presents how New York is consuming energy resources now. To recognize how infrastructure of NY is performing especially energy infra, author traces routes from end users to natural sources for the sake of picking out our easy conscience about it. The article emphasizes infrastructures that we are not aware of but in use.

I think extending the meaning of infrastructure and tracing it can be a systematic analysis of our physical and non-physical environments. So, keen observing and articulating a phenomenon in the view of infrastructure will be effective for solutions of our urban problems because infrastructure is the initial cause generating that phenomenon.