Hi Folks, it has been a while. I probably do need to hold myself to one post per month!
I'm in the meat of my Master's thesis, wrapping up the methodology and beginning to dive into the analysis and interpretation. I already wrote about what my thesis is, actually: seeing how ocean wind/swell/tide energy disperses through Tomales Bay. I'm interested in these processes out of sheer curiosity, but I am motivated to push on them because they are related to the resiliency of the landscape and the potential opportunities for habitat restoration along the shore. Highway 1 goes along the East side of the embayment, and Marin County is concerned for how erodible that shoreline is. Perhaps creating marsh habitat or installing oyster reefs can attenuate that erosion? Perhaps it can attenuate future flood risk?
This kind of work is getting called "natural infrastructure"—recognizing that many natural processes achieve goals that humankind has often addressed with "hard" infrastructure. It can be a strategic tool to define the value of ecosystems in economic terms. I've most often seen the term applied to coastal erosion/flooding and watershed filtration. (e.g. the watersheds that serve most of NYC's municipal water are well-protected, allowing the soil to scrub the water as it moves through the watershed; this allows the city to worry less about expensive, intensive water treatment plants.)
"Infrastructure" is an expansive word. At first pass, what do you imagine? roads? rail lines? water treatment plants? landfills? power lines? potable water? what if we include local ports? cold-storage trucks? cellular networks? health care? housing? Do you consider flood control channels? sewers? catchment basins? In casual conversation, I find myself using "infrastructure" as a shortcut to say something along the lines of "systems that support some ongoing civilizational function." Infrastructure prototypically supports essential human services—perhaps things that allow people to live (and/or the economy to function). In a conversation with Pierie, we considered that "infrastructure is that which supports basic human needs" may be a useful description; that infrastructure should support food, water, shelter, health (sanitation), education, communication (and more...). In this sense, food deserts, lack of affordable housing, and subpar schools can be framed as infrastructural problems. I like this framing because a lot of prototypical "infrastructure" work falls on my field—Civil Engineering—but these are problems that won't be solved by "hard" engineering works (i.e. concrete and steel). They are complex social problems, and the engineer may likely not be the most qualified person in the room to steer the projects. This interview, with Dr Monica Smith, had a huge impact on framing this for me, some years ago.
I went to a series of talks two weeks ago, and Caroline Chen said that "infrastructure is that which creates future conditions for construction," inasmuch as it "plugs" a parcel of space into the services that can make it useful, in an architectural sense. (A place for a building.) I think this line of thinking supports what most of us think too, that infrastructure is not an "individual" thing—you don't have "your" infrastructure: infrastructure is a tool for network service, a way to participate in a broader system. We typically assume that by participating in a network, we reap some benefits of a distributed system—that it will be resilient. We assume that by mass of collective buy-in, it will respond to collective needs (and possibly emergencies). We often assume that large scales for infrastructure permit efficiency and ease for the end-user, by becoming invisible (thanks Dan) and allowing the governance to be outsourced to a small, highly-informed group. (For better or for worse.) Obviously, there are exceptions of various scales.
I feel I am outgrowing an old, more rigid sense of what infrastructure means, and am seeking to find the value in viewing other systems as "infrastructure" too. Intellectual infrastructure, perhaps? I do not want to stretch the term unnecessarily, but its use may help bring urgent and collective-minded thinking to a broader scope of topics.
Serving,
Lukas