Cities and Their Vital Systems Infrastructure Past, Present, and Future (1988) / Chapter Skim
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1 Cities and Infrastructure: Synthesis and Perspectives
1 Cities and Infrastructure: Synthesis and Perspectives
Pages 1-21
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From page 1... ...
The control of water resources constituted the principal problem of early Chinese history, as agriculture was afflicted by frequent floods and droughts. The maintenance and repair of the canals and dikes of the large river valleys were the central administration's main duties and
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According to Joel Tarr (1984) , water supply represented a situation in wh h a number of interests, such as businesses and industries, homeowners, fire insurance companies, and those concerned with public health joined to demand the construction of large public works in order to secure more adequate water supplies at reasonable cost.
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From page 3... ...
As a society, we should strive for a high level of access for individuals, groups, and organizations for the services available through infrastructure. To generalize the stated goal of the early days of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, we should strive for universal, affordable service with regard to water supply and wastewater removal, energy, and transport, as well as communications.
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From page 4... ...
Infrastructure may not routinely mellow with age like a fine violin, but we should be cautious of drawing dramatic conclusions from listings simply giving the age of structures. On the other hand, the mentality of producing goods that are expected to be used for only a short time is almost certainly self-defeating in many infrastructure areas.
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From page 5... ...
In their chapters, Cesare Marchetti and Nebojsa Nakicenovic provide striking examples of how well-documented life histories of infrastructure systems may enable us to forecast future infrastructure needs and how these needs are most likely to be met. There is another simple yet compelling reason for taking an approach that emphasizes the full potential of a system through time and not merely the short-term investment decision.
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From page 6... ...
It is possible to build resilience to disasters into infrastructure, although it sometimes requires costly outlays and also foresight about where evolving vulnerabilities lie. Some formerly devastating problems are now largely under control; fire, for example, was once the scourge of cities, but firefighting and improved engineering and design of structures now effectively keeps fire damage at an acceptable level.
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From page 7... ...
In addition, how do we measure the quality of infrastructure services, such as air transport? It is universally agreed that we would like the time spent engaged with the infrastructure to be of a high quality, but how is this quality defined, measured, and denominated?
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Data responding to several of these questions exist, but it is our impression that these data have not been effectively applied in many infrastructure studies or designs. A comparative, quantitative social science of infrastructure could be useful in indicating paths to improved performance.
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The "utilidor" for infrastructure elements has been proposed as an interesting extension of a packaging concept that is widely and effectively used on a smaller scale in modern building design. But perhaps the current era will be remembered more for advances in enabling technologies, such as synthetic materials for a full spectrum of specifications, and applications of operations research to a range of systems from auto and air traffic control to elevators.
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From page 10... ...
The emphasis is too heavily on solving narrow problems; inadequate efforts are going into research that embeds specific problems in an intelligently defined context or that looks at connections between various elements and problems. Much could be gained by linking the research and development systems for different modes within areas such as transportation and energy, as well as between areas, for example, transportation and communications.
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From page 11... ...
Quantitative examination of such sources as city directories and yellow page telephone books are one pleasing example. It would be fascinating and valuable to extend the analyses undertaken by Herman and coworkers to other cities in the United States and to cities in other countries to understand what is truly invariant, what is culturally dependent, and what is inherent in different stages of city development.
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Do chance events, including seemingly small occurrences, play a significant role, or does necessity determine what unfolds? For example, is it accidental that Silicon Valley developed as it has, or was it inevitable based on certain natural resources and other endowments?
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The main reason for the eventual dominance of narrow gauge was not technological superiority; rather, George Stephenson simply built more narrow gauge in the early competition with the wide gauge of Isambard Brunel, and conversion from broad to narrow gauge was easier than the reverse. In the mid-19SOs a series of minor circumstances appears to have acted in favor of light-water nuclear reactors over potentially superior competing alternatives.
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Adams points out the difficulty faced by planners in the transition periods between epochs. "A group of urban planners in 1880 might have been fairly successful at outlining growth patterns for the ensuing 20 or 30 years, but how would such a group have fared in 1920, when their experience with the characteristics of a rail-dominated transportation network was about to become obsolete?
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From page 15... ...
A logistic substitution model organizes the data on these systems according to market share and overall growth into a set of patterns that have probably not been appreciated in the past for their remarkably steady behavior. The successive roles of horses and automobiles mesh with astonishing precision, as do the life cycles of canals, railroads, roads, and air routes (Figures 14 and 15 in Chapter 81.
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From page 16... ...
In 50 more years some 300 million road vehicles are projected for the United States. Like Marchetti, with whom Nakicenovic developed the theoretical underpinnings of the approach presented in Chapters 7 and 8, Nakicenovic argues that natural gas will be the fuel of choice for a new pulse of growth in the world economy; considerable expansion and extension of the gas pipeline network thus lies ahead.
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Brooks reports that Japan is experimenting with regional development centered on the telecommunications infrastructure. The Japanese are building experimental cities of about 200,000 people with wideband communication, videotext, and interactive systems.
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In the case of water supply, we need to be as alert to problems arising from outside the systems as we are to internal ones. Hanson emphasizes that at least two external factors, the pollution of groundwater and the climatic changes caused by man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, may be critical.
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From page 19... ...
The British, for example, were responsible for building railroads all over the world, from India to South America, in the nineteenth century. Now many more nations appear to have skilled construction enterprises, and it may not be necessary to be a world economic power to compete for such contracts.
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The chapters in this book show vividly that the overall problems of the physical infrastructure and the human activity associated with it present both an overwhelming and an inviting task for researchers and practicing engineers. We are confident that creative into.
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From page 21... ...
Pp. 4-66 in Perspectives on Urban Infrastructure, Royce Hanson, ed.
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