NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2023 BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY "Revelatory, superbly written, and pulsing with wisdom and humanity, How Infrastructure Works is a masterpiece.” —Ed Yong, author of An Immense World A new way of seeing the essential systems hidden inside our walls, under our streets, and all around us Infrastructure is a marvel, meeting our basic needs and enabling lives of astounding ease and productivity that would have been unimaginable just a century ago. It is the physical manifestation of our social contract—of our ability to work collectively for the public good—and it consists of the most complex and vast technological systems ever created by humans. A soaring bridge is an obvious infrastructural feat, but so are the mostly hidden reservoirs, transformers, sewers, cables, and pipes that deliver water, energy, and information to wherever we need it. When these systems work well, they hide in plain sight. Engineer and materials scientist Deb Chachra takes readers on a fascinating tour of these essential utilities, revealing how they work, what it takes to keep them running, just how much we rely on them—but also whom they work well for, and who pays the costs. Across the U.S. and elsewhere, these systems are suffering from systemic neglect and the effects of climate change, becoming unavoidably visible when they break down. Communities that are already marginalized often bear the brunt of these failures. But Chachra maps out a path for transforming and rebuilding our shared infrastructure to be not just functional but also equitable, resilient, and sustainable. The cost of not being able to rely on these systems is unthinkably high. We need to learn how to see them—and fix them, together—before it’s too late.

How does a city obtain water, gas, and electricity? Where do these services come from? How are they transported? The answer is infrastructure, or the inner, and sometimes invisible, workings of the city. Roads, railroads, bridges, telephone wires, and power lines are visible elements of the infrastructure; sewers, plumbing pipes, wires, tunnels, cables, and sometimes rails are usually buried underground or hidden behind walls. Engineering the City tells the fascinating story of infrastructure as it developed through history along with the growth of cities. Experiments, games, and construction diagrams show how these structures are built, how they work, and how they affect the environment of the city and the land outside it.

Get the Summary of Deb Chachra's How Infrastructure Works in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. "How Infrastructure Works" by Deb Chachra is a comprehensive exploration of the intricate web of infrastructural systems that underpin modern life. Chachra's personal journey, from her childhood fascination with megastructures to her professional expertise in materials science, informs her insights into the elegance and collective nature of infrastructure. She discusses the omnipresence of infrastructure, its evolution alongside societal changes, and the role of engineering in harnessing physical phenomena to connect and sustain communities...

Covering agriculture, resources, energy, communication, transportation, manufacturing and waste, this volume explores all the major ecosystems of the modern industrial world, revealing what the structures are and why they're there and uncovering beauty in unexpected places. Photos.

"In response to the infrastructure crisis in the U.S.--brought to the forefront by the Minneapolis bridge collapse and the devastation of Hurricane Sandy--Hillary Brown proposes a new way to approach infrastructure needs. The alternative approach proposed in this volume calls for more diversified, distributed, and interconnected infrastructure that integrates (and in some cases mimics) natural systems"--

Infrastructure Planning and Finance is a non-technical guide to the engineering, planning, and financing of major infrastucture projects in the United States, providing both step-by-step guidance, and a broad overview of the technical, political, and economic challenges of creating lasting infrastructure in the 21st Century. Infrastructure Planning and Finance is designed for the local practitioner or student who wants to learn the basics of how to develop an infrastructure plan, a program, or an individual infrastructure project. A team of authors with experience in public works, planning, and city government explain the history and economic environment of infrastructure and capital planning, addressing common tools like the comprehensive plan, sustainability plans, and local regulations. The book guides readers through the preparation and development of comprehensive plans and infrastructure projects, and through major funding mechanisms, from bonds, user fees, and impact fees to privatization and competition. The rest of the book describes the individual infrastructure systems: their elements, current issues and a 'how-to-do-it' section that covers the system and the comprehensive plan, development regulations and how it can be financed. Innovations such as decentralization, green and blue-green technologies are described as well as local policy actions to achieve a more sustainable city are also addressed. Chapters include water, wastewater, solid waste, streets, transportation, airports, ports, community facilities, parks, schools, energy and telecommunications. Attention is given to how local policies can ensure a sustainable and climate friendly infrastructure system, and how planning for them can be integrated across disciplines.

An investigation of the causes and consequences of the strange, ambivalent, and increasingly central role of infrastructure repair in modern life. Infrastructures--communication, food, transportation, energy, and information--are all around us, and their enduring function and influence depend on the constant work of repair. In this book, Christopher Henke and Benjamin Sims explore the causes and consequences of the strange, ambivalent, and increasingly central role of infrastructure repair in modern life. Henke and Sims offer examples, from local to global, to investigate not only the role of repair in maintaining infrastructures themselves but also the social and political orders that are created and sustained through them.