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10.1.1 What Isn’t Infrastructure?
Small-scale and distributed infrastructures do exist, but when we discuss infrastructure we generally emphasize the largest scales of size, cost, longevity, dependency, complication, and complexity. If a system could be removed and replaced
quickly, affordably, and without a great deal of disruption to the function of the
greater socioeconomic system’s function, it is probably not infrastructure. For
example, if a local fast food restaurant were replaced with a salon (or even if all the
fast food restaurants were replaced), this would probably not bankrupt your city,
and would have only a modest impact on the lifestyle and function of the surrounding residents and businesses. The roads, power lines, and water pipes would need to
change much. However, if the roads, power lines, telecommunications, or water
systems serving the city were removed, the converse is not true: your neighborhood
restaurant and all other residential and commercial activities would be out of service.
There are hard and soft FEW infrastructures.
Examples of hard infrastructure include pipes and water mains; power lines
and plants; refineries; dams, canals, and aqueducts; roads; railways; ports, border
crossings, and ports of entry; rich agricultural soil and cultivated acreage; heavy
factories; warehouses, storage tanks, and silos; landfills; and natural resources, such
as rivers, aquifers, and petrol basins.
Examples of soft infrastructures include laws and courts, regulatory agencies,
government institutions, social institutions, cultures, private individuals, families,
companies, trade agreements, borders, and markets.
Hard infrastructure is engineered, owned, managed, and have a significant physical footprint that is difficult to change. Soft infrastructure is behavioral, social, complex, flexible, and often difficult to observe to control or manage (let alone engineer).
Soft infrastructures are no less locked in than hard infrastructures because human
cultures and institutions are often as resistant to change as concrete and asphalt.
While both hard and soft infrastructure are important to FEW system functioning,
but soft infrastructure is fundamental to FEW system functioning because it determines the rules and purposes for hard infrastructure. Both hard and soft infrastructure are values-laden as they lock-in and reinforce the human values that guided
their creation. Economies of scale and cost efficiency are two clear values embodied
by modern, large-scale hard infrastructure. Socio-ecological-technical systems
comprise both hard and soft infrastructure systems. Knowledge systems are social
systems for thinking, remembering, and communicating, and are an important and
often forgotten category of soft infrastructure.
Green infrastructure is a class of hard infrastructure that emphasizes the intentional creation or augmentation of (usually engineered) natural ecological systems
to provide goods and services. Green infrastructure blurs the line between technology, policy, and ecology. Artificial wetlands are an example of green infrastructure,
they provide both stormwater management and water quality services.
10 Infrastructure
10.1.1 What Isn’t Infrastructure?
Small-scale and distributed infrastructures do exist, but when we discuss infrastructure we generally emphasize the largest scales of size, cost, longevity, dependency, complication, and complexity. If a system could be removed and replaced
quickly, affordably, and without a great deal of disruption to the function of the
greater socioeconomic system’s function, it is probably not infrastructure. For
example, if a local fast food restaurant were replaced with a salon (or even if all the
fast food restaurants were replaced), this would probably not bankrupt your city,
and would have only a modest impact on the lifestyle and function of the surrounding residents and businesses. The roads, power lines, and water pipes would need to
change much. However, if the roads, power lines, telecommunications, or water
systems serving the city were removed, the converse is not true: your neighborhood
restaurant and all other residential and commercial activities would be out of service.
There are hard and soft FEW infrastructures.
Examples of hard infrastructure include pipes and water mains; power lines
and plants; refineries; dams, canals, and aqueducts; roads; railways; ports, border
crossings, and ports of entry; rich agricultural soil and cultivated acreage; heavy
factories; warehouses, storage tanks, and silos; landfills; and natural resources, such
as rivers, aquifers, and petrol basins.
Examples of soft infrastructures include laws and courts, regulatory agencies,
government institutions, social institutions, cultures, private individuals, families,
companies, trade agreements, borders, and markets.
Hard infrastructure is engineered, owned, managed, and have a significant physical footprint that is difficult to change. Soft infrastructure is behavioral, social, complex, flexible, and often difficult to observe to control or manage (let alone engineer).
Soft infrastructures are no less locked in than hard infrastructures because human
cultures and institutions are often as resistant to change as concrete and asphalt.
While both hard and soft infrastructure are important to FEW system functioning,
but soft infrastructure is fundamental to FEW system functioning because it determines the rules and purposes for hard infrastructure. Both hard and soft infrastructure are values-laden as they lock-in and reinforce the human values that guided
their creation. Economies of scale and cost efficiency are two clear values embodied
by modern, large-scale hard infrastructure. Socio-ecological-technical systems
comprise both hard and soft infrastructure systems. Knowledge systems are social
systems for thinking, remembering, and communicating, and are an important and
often forgotten category of soft infrastructure.
Green infrastructure is a class of hard infrastructure that emphasizes the intentional creation or augmentation of (usually engineered) natural ecological systems
to provide goods and services. Green infrastructure blurs the line between technology, policy, and ecology. Artificial wetlands are an example of green infrastructure,
they provide both stormwater management and water quality services.
10 Infrastructure