Infrastructure is key to make cities sustainable

Abstract

Infrastructure is all around us: under, above, even inside our built and natural landscapes. Sometimes hidden, sometimes visible. The flows that course through them make our cities, economies, and lives possible. Cities could not even exist without infrastructure. Life is endowed with more possibilities by infrastructure. The centrality of infrastructure is pervasive. Worldwide, cities embrace infrastructure for economic competitiveness, well-being, access, environmental protection and knowledge creation. As cities are crucibles that concentrate the human condition, infrastructures are conduits that enable that concentration and empower human achievement. As infrastructures shape almost every aspect of daily life, this article assays the various ways it currently makes places both less sustainable and resilient, as well as more so, and how we can minimise the former and optimise the latter.