Infrastructure Planning

Intercontinental Embarrassment for Berlin: Grand Opening of BER Berlin-Brandenburg Airport Delayed (in Italian)

by Denis Bocquet

Published in: Il Giornale dell'Architettura, n.106, p.14, June 2012

A reaction to the announcement of the impossibility for the authorities in charge of the construction and management... more A reaction to the announcement of the impossibility for the authorities in charge of the construction and management of the new BER Berlin-Brandenburg airport to open on time.

Key words:
BBI, BER, Schönefeld, Tegel, Berlin, Germany, Germania, aeroporto, delay, fiasco, Willy Brandt, Rainer Schwarz, Klaus Wowereit, Matthias Platzeck, Bosch, Siemens, Hartmut Mehdorn, SPD, CDU, SXF, TXL, One World, Air Berlin, Lufthansa, Easyjet,

2012 “Of Camps, Gulags & Extraordinary Renditions: Infrastructural Violence in Romania,” Ethnography, 13(4): Forthcoming.

by Bruce O'Neill

Paper prepared for a special issue of Ethnography (13/4) on “Infrastructural Violence" edited by Bruce O'Neill and Dennis Rodgers.

From fascist prisons to Communist-era gulags, Romania does not simply have a history of torture, but also an existing... more From fascist prisons to Communist-era gulags, Romania does not simply have a history of torture, but also an existing infrastructure conducive to its practice. Romania, human rights organizations have made clear, hosted a number of “secret detention centers” used by the U.S. Government in its program of “extraordinary rendition,” whereby intelligence agents illegally rendered, detained and tortured suspected terrorists. Both Romania’s gulags and its secret detention centers call to mind Giorgio Agamben’s notion of “the camp” – an extra-juridical space where human life is reduced to its bare form – which is why this article pivots on a historical comparison between the two. While both gulags and extraordinary rendition share material infrastructure, and both were organized around the production and management of “bare life,” this article shows that rendition operates through a very different spatial logic than a gulag. As a result, survivors of these different spatial iterations of “the camp” offer qualitatively different accounts of bare life. This observation allows ethnographers to extend Agamben’s analytical reach by spatially contextualizing the form, relations and kinds of violence taking shape inside “camps,” allowing theorists to think about bare life as a historically specific phenomenon.

Carse A (2012) Nature as infrastructure: Making and managing the Panama Canal Watershed.” Social Studies of Science 32(4).

by Ashley Carse

In: Special Issue on Water and Science and Technology Studies, Samer Alatout & Jessica Barnes, eds. Comments by Karen Bakker & Wiebe Bijker.

The Panama Canal requires an enormous volume of fresh water to function. A staggering 52 million gallons are released... more The Panama Canal requires an enormous volume of fresh water to function. A staggering 52 million gallons are released into the Atlantic and Pacific oceans with each of the 35–45 ships that transit the canal daily. The water that facilitates interoceanic transportation and global connection falls as rain across the watershed surrounding the canal and is managed by an extensive system of locks, dams, and hydrographic stations. These technologies – which correspond with the popular understanding of infrastructure as hardware – were largely constructed during the early 20th century. Since the late 1970s, however, administrators and other concerned actors have responded to actual and potential water scarcity within the canal system by developing a managerial approach that integrates engineered technologies and new techniques of land-use planning and environmental regulation across the watershed. Through this process, techno-politics and environmental politics have become increasingly inextricable in the transit zone. Whereas canal administrators previously emphasized the control of water in its liquid state, watershed management emerged as an attempt to manipulate water flows through the legal protection of forests and restriction of agriculture. As forested landscapes have been assigned new infrastructural functions (water storage and regulation), campesino farmers have been charged with a new responsibility (forest conservation) often at odds with their established agricultural practices. Consequently, I bring together scholarship on infrastructure in science and technology studies and political ecology in anthropology and geography to examine why, how, and to what effect landscapes around the canal have been transformed from agricultural frontier to managed watershed. I suggest that the concept of infrastructure is a useful theoretical tool and empirical topic for analyzing the politics of environmental service provision. By paying attention to the contingent history of engineering decisions and the politics embedded in the changing socio-technical system that delivers water to the canal, we can better understand the distributional politics of environmental service provision in Panama today.

Pressure: The Polytechnics of Water Supply in Mumbai

by Nikhil Anand

2011.  Cultural Anthropology 26(4) 542-563.

In Mumbai, most all residents are delivered their daily supply of water for a few hours every day, on a water supply... more In Mumbai, most all residents are delivered their daily supply of water for a few hours every day, on a water supply schedule. Subject to a more precarious supply than the city’s upper-class residents, the city’s settlers have to consistently demand that their w ater come on “time” and with “pressure. ” T aking pressure seriously as both a social and natural force, in this article I focus on the ways in which settlers mobilize the pressures of politics, pumps, and pipes to get water. I show how these practices not only allow settlers to live in the city, but also produce what I call hydraulic citizenship—a form of belonging to the city made by effective political and technical connections to the city’s infrastructure. Yet, not all settlers are able to get water from the city water department. The outcomes of settlers’ efforts to access water depend on a complex matrix of socionatural relations that settlers make with city engineers and their hydraulic infrastructure. I show how these arrangements describe and produce the cultural politics of water in Mumbai. By focusing on the ways in which residents in a predominantly Muslim settlement draw water despite the state’s neglect, I conclude by pointing to the indeterminacy of water, and the ways in which its seepage and leakage make different kinds of politics and publics possible in the city.

Le infrastrutture in Italia: dotazione, programmazione, realizzazione

by marcucci edoardo

Seeing the Familiar Strange: Actants, Actors and Arenas of Transnational Media History

by Andreas Fickers

This article is published in Medien & Zeit 26:4 (2011), pp. 16-24.

The essay pleas for a critical reassessment of the nation as long lasting paradigm of historical research on mass... more The essay pleas for a critical reassessment of the nation as long lasting paradigm of historical research on mass media. By presenting the transnational perspective as a useful framework
for seeing the familiar strange, the author introduces the three interrelated concepts of actants, actors and arenas as critical tools for the study of transnational media flows. Based
on three historical short stories dealing with the emergence of a telegraph infrastructure for news reporting in Sweden, the establishment of a transnational „pirate“ radio and television station in the Saar region, and subversive viewing practices of the Romanian television audience in the 1980s, the author aims at problematizing the complex spatial and topological nature of transnational mediascape by using an integral media historical
approach.

Planned and Integrated Approach to Maintenance of Urban Infrastructure in Nigeria

by Chukwuma Nwuba

Co-authored with Babatunde M. Salawu. Published in Environ-Tech Vol. 1. No 1, November, 2010

Abstract

Infrastructure is a key element in the generation of economic growth and development and the main... more Abstract

Infrastructure is a key element in the generation of economic growth and development and the main driver of urban activities. It is the economic and social underpinnings of a society and the life wire of the urban system. Nigeria’s urban infrastructure is in deplorable and inefficient state due largely to lack of effective maintenance resulting from the current reactive, remedial, “task force” approach to maintenance and inefficient infrastructure management system. The situation has had strong negative impact on economic growth and development. A proactive approach involving planning and integration is proposed. It advocates a planned system of maintenance with proper balance between preventive and corrective measures, and the integration of the activities of the various urban infrastructure management agencies and the various aspects of infrastructure maintenance using GIS technology to enable the different agencies deal with
various aspects of infrastructure maintenance and management in an integrated environment. It is a long term solution and is intended to make maintenance efficient and cost effective. The proposal will face challenges but its prospects are high. It is believed that with its adoption by the various governments, the problem of poor state of urban infrastructure will be dealt with.

Complexity and Uncertainty: Problem or Asset in Decision Making of Mega Infrastructure Projects?

by Mendel Giezen

Salet, Bertolini, Giezen in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research

How should one cope with complexity and uncertainty in mega infrastructure projects? While rational theories tend to... more How should one cope with complexity and uncertainty in mega infrastructure projects? While rational theories tend to eliminate or reduce these unruly conditions, the authors of this article are in search of a different approach to deal with the characteristics of complexity and uncertainty proactively. Three theoretical reflections are introduced to explore possible solutions: (1) the change of institutions to address the problem of excessively simple structures for making decisions on complex projects; (2) the shaping of a learning environment in order to deal with uncertainty and emergent properties; and (3) balancing the generation and the reduction of a variety of policy options in order to select a limited number of feasible options and to bridge the strategic exploration and the operational processes of decision making. Informed by this conceptual thought, concrete pathways are developed and discussed by means of a case study of the construction of a high-speed railway line in the Netherlands.

Résumé
Comment doit-on gérer complexité et incertitude dans le cadre de mégaprojets d'infrastructure? Tandis que les théories rationnelles ont tendance àéliminer ou à minorer ces circonstances incontrôlées, cet article recherche une approche différente pour aborder les caractéristiques de la complexité et de l'incertitude de manière proactive. Trois axes de réflexion théorique sont présentés: la transformation des institutions, pour résoudre le problème des structures extrêmement simples confrontées à des décisions sur des projets complexes; la configuration d'un environnement d'apprentissage, pour faire face à l'incertitude et aux nouveaux éléments; l'équilibrage entre génération et réduction des diverses possibilités d'action publique, afin de sélectionner un nombre restreint d'options réalisables et d'harmoniser recherche de stratégies et processus décisionnels opérationnels. À partir de cette réflexion conceptuelle, des voies concrètes sont développées et analysées à travers une étude de cas sur la construction d'une ligne ferroviaire à grande vitesse aux Pays-Bas.

Bonham Global Consultants: Recommendations to the World Bank Road and Highway Infrastructure Fund for South Sudan

by Adam Croglia

Interwoven landscape

by Alessio Erioli

Co-authored with Mirco Bianchini; additional collaboration from Piero Bruschi and Andrea Baschieri for the chemical developments.

Published in "2011 International Conference on Green Buildings and Sustainable Cities" - Procedia Engineering

Human specie has always engineered the environment to set the conditions for its own settlement, producing in its... more Human specie has always engineered the environment to set the conditions for its own settlement, producing in its evolutionary development superorganisms (cities) and the necessary networks of connections among them. Instead of rejecting cars as an extraneous object to a picturesque nature, this project starts from a perspective in which cities and technology are the metabolic extension of human specie and therefore a necessary part of its own nature; the vessels (vehicles) for human transportation, or better, the vehicle-host symbiotic system thus becomes a necessary part of human ecology, and so the network of connections upon which they live, operate and interact with: infrastructures. The project of an environmental enhancer for the Nogara mare highway in Veneto (Italy) provides the unique chance to bring together ecological thinking, host interaction and active materials. Its location (an open country planar area among cultivated fields) enucleates as critical variables the impact of pollutants and the phenomenon of dazzling. With respect to such criticalities, the project uses digital generative and parametric strategies to generate a performative structure in which densification and rarefaction of elements is a local morphological response to dazzle. The structure itself acts as a scaffold for a photo catalytic PET based material that, mimicking the behavior of coccoluti (marine microorganisms) is able to reduce CO2 (and potentially other pollutants) to salts and nitrates that are then naturally deployed to the neighboring cultivated fields as fertilizers. The material has been tested for photo catalytic integration and is currently under development. Present building and production techniques privilege the industrial assembly of inert materials, with a one-way flow of energy and process from raw material to finished product. Instead of this mono-directional energy consumption the project promotes the continuous exchange of information (as code and matter-energy) at all levels and from the digital to the material domains: use of dazzle information, morphogenetic rules and structural behavior to generate the scaffold, a photo catalytic material that responds to pollutants and produces fertilizers, making the structure symbiotic with their hosts and the environment.

Housing for health in indigenous Australia: Driving change when research and policy are part of the problem

by Tess Lea

'Costs and benefits of urban dispersion on a local scale': presentation of an ongoing research project

by Pedro Serrano Gomes

Carvalho, Jorge; Gomes, Pedro S. Costs and benefits of urban dispersion on a local scale: presentation of an ongoing research project. In: International Conference Virtual City and Territory. "5th International Conference Virtual City and Territory, Barcelona, 2,3 and 4 June 2009". Barcelona: Centre de Política de Sòl i Valoracions, 2009, p. 169-180.

There is an increasing urbanization of the world population, but the city has been taking new shapes,different from... more There is an increasing urbanization of the world population, but the city has been taking new shapes,different from traditional compact and continuous forms. In the emergent city, mobility has transformed social and spatial relations, construction is intertwined with increasingly abandoned green spaces and the urban structure is fragmented and dispersed. Such dispersion, even without many defenders among key urban theorists, is nowadays a reality, unplanned, but practised and accepted. Arguments for and against dispersion have long been confronted, remaining unchanged: for some, it means contact with nature, space and intimacy; for others, it is a simulacrum of nature, isolation and anonymity. Such subjective arguments are important in the identification of different concepts of quality of life. But there are other arguments, objective ones: land consumption, public infrastructure costs, mobility costs and housing prices. The Research Project “Costs and Benefits of Urban Dispersion on a local scale”, from which this communication derives, seeks opinion, as precise as possible, on these issues. To do so, it will consider costs and benefits. Studies seeking to quantify costs, relating mainly to the USA, analyse dispersion, the majority of times, on a regional scale. In this Project, we intend to compare costs between different “Base Land Units” of the extended city – a concept similar to that of the neighbourhood unit or of the neighbourhood itself. Our main goal is, then, to analyse and, if possible, to confront costs and benefits of different land use types. By benefits we understand quality of life, a concept that changes from opinion group to opinion group. We intend to transform this concept into an algorithm which integrates this variability, based on the current literature, similar previous studies and on the answers to a questionnaire applied to the inhabitants of Aveiro-Ílhavo and Évora (our case studies).Regarding costs, we will look at local public infrastructure (including networks, all public space and public equipments) and mobility (integrated costs per km and per user for each transport mode). Quantification of costs relating to land consumption and other environmental externalities (nature and landscape based) has to be left for a later research opportunity. Our conclusions, supported by public questionnaires, will be expressed quantitatively: an utility function to represent opinions on quality of life; an integrated cost for local infrastructure + mobility; and a methodology to relate the two functions for a variety of scenarios. This will result in the formulation of a comparative opinion, expressed in cost-benefit terms, between the various typologies of dispersed occupation and, also, between these and those of continuous occupation. To formulate an operative proposal regarding urban dispersion, it is important to understand how the market works (in terms of its agents, procedures and prices) for current dispersed occupation dynamics. This paper will go through the work undertaken so far, describing concepts and methods and presenting preliminary results when possible. It will not only focus on the Project’s general methodology, but also on methodologies specific to each Task, whenever it is thought appropriate.

A Generative Method for Infrastructure Emergence

by Marco Lagi

2010 “Down & Then Out in Bucharest: Urban Poverty, Governance & the Politics of Place in the Post-Socialist City,” Environment & Planning D, 28(2): 254-269.

by Bruce O'Neill

This paper analyzes at the level of space the invention and management of homelessness in postsocialist cities. Based... more This paper analyzes at the level of space the invention and management of homelessness in postsocialist cities. Based on more than a year of ethnographic fieldwork in a nongovernmental organization (NGO) that provides shelter space in Bucharest, Romania, this paper foregrounds the political significance of placing homeless populations to better understand neoliberal governance as a set of spatially minded practices, arguing (ultimately) that space is a key domain through which homeless populations become managed. This paper, in the end, focuses on ‘the place’ of homelessness to bring the dynamics of postsocialist liberalization into clearer relief.

Infrastructure: A long road ahead

by Felix Faulhaber

Co-authored with Rod Cloete and Markus Zils, published in the "McKinsey on Africa" report. 2010

Governance, Technology and the Search for Modernity in Kenya

by Warigia Bowman

published in William and Mary Policy Review

An ICT policy that produces broad access quickly is better than one that does not. Accordingly, success in ICT... more An ICT policy that produces broad access quickly is better than one that does not. Accordingly, success in ICT policymaking can be measured by three empirical measures: speed of passage, scope of implementation, and distribution, as well as one normative measure, process. ―Process represents an important normative dimension of ICT policymaking. Process measures the extent to which the ICT policymaking involves the citizenry, as represented by individuals, civil society groups, local private sector groups, and ideally, urban and rural residents (―wananchi‖). Kenya is a case of slow speed of passage, low scope of implementation, low distribution, but high process. The political history of Kenya‘s ICTpolicymaking explains why this county, with such capable people and relatively open ICT policymaking, has struggled to keep up with its poorer neighbors.

The Lost Habitat of Burnt Tree Island

by Philip Potter

A prefaced letter to the editor of my local paper (The Stourbridge News) which was published, in an unedited form on the 12th January 2012

The following was written as a viewpoint for the local newspaper (Stourbridge News 12/1/2012, retitled by the editor:... more The following was written as a viewpoint for the local newspaper (Stourbridge News 12/1/2012, retitled by the editor: ‘Rise of the machines robs us of our history’) This short opinion pertains to a busy road junction changing from a roundabout to traffic lights, not obviously a target for eco-critical analysis one might think. However, urban environmental planning issues surrounding road infrastructure are usually framed from the perspective of quantitative, western, scientific realism.  Consequently such issues are typically approached independently of the human context, leading to the condition of (the) environment being treated as separate and objective - while the opponents of this ‘scientific’ view argue the right of the planet over the interests of humanity. I argue that if we are to usefully raise awareness of environmental issues and in particular human cultural engagement with place, we must first re-negotiate the prevalent dialectic of nature-as-self versus nature-as-object to answer the developers’ perennial question: “what good is it?” In my view we are a force of nature and any worthwhile ecology must include us without being essentially anthropocentric.

Texas Regional Councils' Assessment of Security Vulnerabilities in Local Infrastructures

by Texas State PA Applied Research Projects

Cantu, Luci, "Texas Regional Councils' Assessment of Security Vulnerabilities in Local Infrastructures" (2004). Applied Research Projects, Texas State University-San Marcos. Paper 16.
http://ecommons.txstate.edu/arp/16

Since September 11, 2001 terrorism was the chief concern among US citizens. Government officials were concerned on how... more Since September 11, 2001 terrorism was the chief concern among US citizens. Government officials were concerned on how to protect their communities from terrorism and immediately created and implemented various strategies and policies. Security experts and government officials felt that a cohesive partnership between businesses, government officials, scholars, universities, and private citizens would foster lines of communication in combating terrorism. With the creation of U.S. Department of Homeland Security, various publications outlined strategies to protect critical infrastructures and key assets. These strategies foster the partnership between government officials, businesses, and private entities and provided ideas for proactive measures in securing critical infrastructures. These strategies provided an avenue for this study.

The purpose of this study is threefold: (1) Identify and describe the potential cyber vulnerabilities and physical threats of water and energy infrastructures that are specified within documents outlined by the Department of Homeland Security (2) Identify and describe proactive measures in disaster recovery and information sharing that are specified within the literature review and documents outlined by the Department of Homeland Security and (3) Assess the Texas water and energy infrastructure vulnerability from the point of view of Texas Regional Council leaders.

Considering the Importance of Water Dynamics in Sustainable Planning.

by Oscar Herrera Granados

Herrera Granados, O. Considering the Importance of Water Dynamics in Sustainable Planning. In Water in the Townscape, volume 2, pages 101–110. Publishing House of Poznan University of Technology, 2009.

Most of the relevant civilizations decided to settle along rivers, not far from the sea’s shoreline or close to other... more Most of the relevant civilizations decided to settle along rivers, not far from the sea’s shoreline or close to other water bodies. Our ancients were trying to adequate the waterways and water bodies according to the human necessities not necessarily thinking about the consequences that could arise after modifying the natural water conditions; nevertheless, water is not a static item. The hydrodynamics of rivers, creeks or of the sea have an important role regarding many environmental issues. Hence, this paper presents some examples of the role of the water dynamics in the landscape formation and of the influence of the human interferences in river and coastal morphodynamics. The author encourages the
interaction and brainstorming between water-specialists, stakeholders and decision-makers as a key point to solve arising conflicts and to find the harmony between the water resources and the man-made infrastructure.

Numerical modelling as a key tool in the decision-making process for water resources management

by Oscar Herrera Granados

Herrera Granados, O. Numerical modelling as a key tool in the decision-making process for water resources management. In MIPALCON 2010: Infrastructure Planning and development in developing countries., University of Stuttgart, 2010 pp. 83-94.

Once our ancestors decided to settle close to rivers, natural streams, oceans and lakes; these water bodies have been... more Once our ancestors decided to settle close to rivers, natural streams, oceans and lakes; these water bodies have been playing a crucial role in the activities of human-societies. Since life depends on this vital liquid, to manage the water resources properly and in a sustainable way is transcendental for finding the harmony between the water resources and the man-made constructions. In order to reach this aim; the people involved in the decision-making process for water resources management have to be supported not only by well-done directives or guidelines; but also by experts in the field of hydro-engineering. Nowadays, the water specialists use numerical models to understand better the natural phenomena that involve water dynamics. Thanks to the rapid evolution of the computer facilities; numerical modelling is becoming a rapid, efficient and “cheap” solution to predict the hazards provoked by water flow and to manage our water resources. The present paper takes a glance on how numerical modelling can help the hydro-engineers not only in predicting water flow, but also to analyze the interaction between water and the man-made infrastructure. Once a numerical model is set-up; the water specialist can modify it relatively easy in order to forecast different scenarios and consequently to facilitate the work of decision-makers to choose the most convenient option from the technical point of view.