Genesis of the ‘modern infrastructural ideal’

How and why we built always on, always there networks

The new normal• In the developed world, we are used to having

networks always there, and always on• We flick the light switch, open the tap, pick up

the phone and expect all of this to just be there and just work, seamlessly

• This state of everyone being connected all the time is called the ‘modern infrastructural ideal’ by Graham and Marvin (2001)

• It is unique in history: never existed before

What is the MII?• high connectivity and high reliability

• ubiquitous systems that support contemporary life and enhance our capabilities (just think for a second of how you feel when you can’t connect to the internet, or take a shower, or cook, for several days!)

• In effect, networks become a part of us, an extension of our body in space and time, making us cyborg individuals

• In other terms, the transport, payment, power, communication networks are part of ‘you’ and how you act in the world…(remember: ANT)

• objects and technologies can become a part of who we are and how we perceive ourselves, in space and in time

• The ‘natural’ (ourselves, water, electrons etc.) mingles with the ‘social’ and ‘technical’—it becomes very artificial to distinguish these

• In this sense, a city, our social life, are as ‘natural’ as anthills or birds’ nests or burrows: a combination of materials and actions by living beings

• Networks give us greater presence and greater power in time and space—we can achieve much more with than without them

A ‘second nature’• Networks and their services have become a

‘second nature’ to us…• However, this state is far from given, and is the

result of a long, complex and unique history, touching on politics, economics, society, the environment, hygiene and other themes

• Here, we look at the socio-historical construction of the modern infrastructural ideal, in the developed world, and the attempts at building such systems in the developing world

The first driver

• Industrialisation• Sanitation• The ‘sanitary city’ (Melosi)

Rise of the ‘sanitary city’

• With rapid industrialisation from the early 19C, cities in the West became bywords of pollution, overcrowding, poor living conditions and high mortality

• This was related to many factors, among which poor sanitation played a key role

• With new discoveries in medicine, such as Pasteur’s work on infection and its mechanisms, it became apparent that better sanitation was required to allow for stronger, healthier cities

Example: poor sanitary conditions

Friedrich Engels’ study• Engels, a German philosopher, was a keen observer of

the condition of the working class in England in C19• In 1845, he published a Study of the condition of the

working class in England, based on his observations in Manchester, the birthplace of the industrial revolution

• Among his observations: mortality from disease was 4 times higher in the cities than in the surrounding countryside; and the rise in diseases mirrored the rise of industry

• These unpleasant, dangerous living conditions in cities would become one of the factors in the rise of labour movements—a threat to industrialists and those in power

• Doing something about living conditions in cities became necessary as a way of avoiding a revolution

• Again, we note the socio-political dimension of networked services!

• Another big driver for greater sanitation and better living conditions generally was war

• Indeed, when conscripts were called up in the 19th century and early 20th century, many had to be turned away due to dreadful health conditions: unfit, too small, disabled etc.

• Clearly, poor sanitation was not helping the nation in any way!

• Water and sewerage became the first targets for improvement, as it was clear that most health problems were coming from these

Clean water• The initial approach, before mechanisms of

infection and sterilisation were well known, was to get ‘pure’ water far from the city

• This spawned the creation of vast, complex systems of aqueducts that could run for hundreds of miles to tap into the resource

• Examples are New York, Paris, Los Angeles, Cape Town and many others

Illustrations/examples

• LA gets its water from several sources, some hundreds of miles away

• The city could never have reached its size, and its status in modern society, without these tremendous engineering works

• In so doing, the city has transformed many ecosystems, and created many conflicts with other cities and even countries (Mexico gets very little Colorado water)

• If these lifelines are interrupted, the city will die!

• It is obvious how connected, plugged in to resources these cities are

• They would not and could not exist as they are without these life-support systems on 24/7

• At the same time, this breeds dependence and reduces social and physical resilience of the city

• A major shock may spell doom…

Human-made rivers in the desert…

Waste systems• Providing clean water is not enough, human and industrial

effluent have to be collected and disposed of to prevent infection and pollution

• Thus, vast waste collection systems were created in the mid to late 19th centuries in Western cities, e.g. London, Paris—veritable underground cities

• These large systems are still the basis of water and sewerage systems in these and other cities, and have allowed for increasing consumption of water and production of waste

• In a way, the more resources we have, the more we consume…same goes for other networks, like roads

London sewers, early C20

Underground cathedrals

• Thus water and sanitation were the stepping stones of the modern infrastructural ideal

• Public investment on a massive scale was justified in order to improve everyone’s living conditions and prevent widespread infections/disease

• However, other goals were also pursued at the same time, though not always so explicitly

Another driver: politics• The quest to impose order on the city form• Cities are dynamic and creative—e.g. Lefebvre• But they can seem unruly and chaotic,

especially to those in power• Networked systems are part of strategies of

social control, through imposing order on the built environment and on patterns of life

Before we discuss this• Take a few moments in your groups to reflect

on :• What is power? Can you define it?• how networked systems may be related to

social, political, physical and other forms of order and power?

• Examples may be from every day life, news, fiction…

Hauss-who?• Who was Haussmann? • What did he do, and why is it important in the

history of planning and networks?• Many of the impacts of his work were

chronicled in the writing of a great French poet, who was also a fantastic observer of the city and urban life…this was?

• Haussmann was the Prefect of Paris under Napoleon III (1850s-1870s)

• He carried out massive, long-term and wide-ranging works of urban transformation in Paris

• These transformations, including heavy investments in urban networks, had significant impacts on society, urban form, and the flows in the city

• His name is now associated with a specific kind of large-scale planning and its socio-spatial and political effects

Cleaning up and imposing a spatial and political order

Not just in Paris

• All the major French cities underwent the same pattern of destruction of the old layout (and its communities) in favour of the new layout, based on wide boulevards

• Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux have all undergone such processes

• Even here in Edinburgh, we have some evidence of such urban renewal

• Any examples?

Chambers Street (1867)

Cockburn Street, Old Town

• In both cases, the traditional, winding Medieval layout was destroyed

• A wide boulevard was created• Much of the housing stock was removed, and

the street was gentrified, the poor pushed away• This was done in the name of sanitation and

modernity• Indeed, these sections were highly

overcrowded and diseased• Much the same debate can be found in the

Moses/Jacobs debate, and today!

Authority and normalisation • The reordering of the street pattern (boulevards), the destruction of old housing

stock etc., had the aim of permitting greater social control and repression if required (facilitation of troop movement)

• Likewise, the spread of the rail network in the country (and others around this period) had an effect of normalisation and centralisation

• In this sense, networks are instruments of power and control, they spread uniformity and standardisation (e.g. time & railways)

• The order of networks is a reflection of the order that society wishes to impose on people, a way of structuring our lives and activities

• Haussmanian planning was at the service of dominant powers and business; it aimed to make the city more efficient for them: a place of capitalistic flows

Networks, aesthetics and ideologies• The rise of technical networks can also be

related to a ‘machine age’ starting in the late C19/early C20

• Networks are related to aesthetic and ideological aspects of urban life

• This can be seen in architecture and urban design, especially with the rise of totalitarian systems in the 1920s-1930s in Europe

Urban technical networks and political power

• The rise of the C20 dictatorships in Italy, Germany and Russia was accompanied by major efforts in the field of infrastructure, both as symbol and enabler of these countries’ power

• One key area was that of transportation infrastructure, useful to the war effort but also a celebration of speed and modernity, such as with Italy’s ‘futurists’, embraced by Mussolini

• Futurists were also influential in other countries, including the USA; they placed a heavy emphasis on speed, transport, flows in the city…and therefore, on networks as symbols and enablers of modernity

Futurism

• Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Manifesto of Futurism, 1909

• Poets, musicians, artists and architects• Celebration of speed, but also violence and

war (many futurists volunteered to fight in WWI…and died)

Futurists

Sant’Elia, Futurist City, 1914

Lingotto, Turin (1934)

• How do these buildings express the ideology of modernity?

• How do they relate to networked systems?• Do any other examples of buildings

embodying modernity spring to mind?

A major, controversial figure of the Machine Age: Le Corbusier

• One of the biggest, most influential and controversial figures of the Machine Age in planning, architecture and general cultural life

• Le Corbusier and Modernism

• Le Corbusier, a Swiss-born architect and planner, saw housing (and cities by extension) as ‘machines for living’

• He placed a great emphasis on simplified, even monastic living quarters that simply satisfied the basics of life: eating, sleeping

• In city design, he emphasised what he saw as rational use of space—the tower in the garden

• He also emphasised transport and flow, showing a clear interest in networks and systems

• This is known as Modernism, a very influential current in planning

• It has given us high-rise housing tower blocks, urban motorways, separation of work/living spaces etc.

The master in person…

Unite d’Habitation (‘Living Unit’)

Plan for Paris

• What strikes you about this type of planning and conception of the city?

• What is prioritised, emphasised?• What is de-emphasised?

• His plan for Paris called for the wholesale destruction of the historic core, seen as irrational and hindering movement, using too much space…

• bye-bye medieval, winding streets! Hello motorways and high-rises…

• In this, he shared views with the fascists, Nazis, and Soviet Russia, also fascinated with creating a ‘new’ society devoid of the ‘obstacles’ of yesteryear…

• Edinburgh also narrowly escaped such a future…do you know what the plan was?

Abercrombie’s plan for Edinburgh (1946)

• This plan also called for wholesale destruction of what we see now as essential aspects of Edinburgh’s appearance and beauty

• Some parts of the Modernist plan were actually built

• this can be seen around the University of Edinburgh, where whole sections of Georgian architecture were demolished to make way for a Modernist approach

• This can also be seen with the now-infamous Saint James’ Centre, slated for demolition…

Edinburgh University library

What do you think?• Would Paris and Edinburgh be worse or better

cities if these plans had been carried out?• What would be the pros and cons?• Which kind of design is better adapted to

modernity?

The rise of transport networks• With industrialisation of Western countries from mid

19C, the need for better, more effective and capacious transport systems became essential

• This is when amazing, enormous systems such as the Paris, London and New York metro (underground) were created

• These systems connected to suburban tram and then train lines, to form an integrated transport system covering vast surfaces and totally transforming our relationship to the city

• The transit maps have even become symbols of the city

London underground system

Paris

New York

• New, integrated and effective transportation systems have allowed cities to get bigger and bigger, with more and more people and businesses in easy range of one another

• This was impossible when people had to walk, or use means such as horses, though of course it did not totally prevent cities from growing, but much slower and in a less spread out way

In the USA• ‘Crabgrass Frontier’ by Kenneth T Jackson (1985)

explains the importance of the development of vast, affordable and efficient tram networks connecting cities throughout the country

• This encouraged the development of a very specific form of US suburbanisation, which would then be consolidated and boosted by the vertiginous rise of car ownership from 1920s onwards

• RM Fogelson sees in these patterns the first steps of the ‘fragmented metropolis’, as we will discuss in more detail in another section of the course

The clash of Modernism and community rights

• The ideology of rationalism and the primacy of transportation and movement were strongly embodied in the work of Robert Moses in New York city

• This led to dramatic social and cultural impacts and eventually to a strong backlash

• This backlash paved the way for community rights in planning and design

Robert Moses

A motorway builder!

• Old, traditional neighbourhoods destroyed or cut into pieces by infrastructure

• Facilitating flows of cars, accelerating the pace in the name of ‘modernity’

• Also imposing ‘order’ on parts of the city that were seen as out of control: immigrant, poor, black…

• He held enormous power for decades and profoundly reshaped NYC

Your opinion…• Do you think that old, sometimes run-down

neighbourhoods need to be destroyed in the name of modernity?

• Can you think of examples of less destructive approaches to the problem of urban renewal?

• Take a few minutes to discuss in your groups, using examples

The backlash: Jane Jacobs and community-centred planning

• The wholesale destruction of traditional, vibrant neighbourhoods seen as ‘slums’ by the elite led to increasingly strong reactions from the community

• One main figurehead was Jane Jacobs, who called for the preservation of such neighbourhoods, with her motto of ‘eyes on the street’

• This was the opening of the debate on sustainable, community-led urbanism and planning….a very big topic today!

A landmark book that all planners and human geographers should read!

Links to Cold War situation• In the USA, the rapid and massive development of the

Federal highway system from the 1950s was strongly linked to the discourse of the Cold War

• Highways were explicitly linked to the necessity to transport troops and weaponry rapidly and effectively in the case of nuclear war with Soviet Russia

• Thus we understand that it was almost subversive, unpatriotic to oppose actions such as those of Robert Moses!

• Just as it is today in China for instance, where the recent completion of the train line from Beijing to Tibet is part of a process of internal colonisation and ethnic uniformisation

• So we see the strong links between urban technical networks and notions of social control and domination

• These networks can be used as instruments of domination by an ‘elite’ who want to impose normalised patterns of life and circulation that favour capitalism and ‘efficiency’ often at the detriment of existing, traditional patterns of social life

Other examples of standardisation/ control through UTNs

• Radio, TV: spread of ideas, fashion etc.• Today, internet and memes• These networks promote and diffuse dominant

economic, political, aesthetic etc. ideologies

• The order of networks is also a socio-political and socio-spatial order

• Networks and technology are not neutral

The technological sublime• The development and spread of ubiquitous,

always-on networks from C19 reveals something about relations between humans and technology

• There is an obsession with the technological seen as a form of power over nature, guarantee of progress and emancipation

• Urban technologies became symbols of a more rational world

• Kaika and Swyngedouw describe the early days of the spread of networked systems in the West (early to mid C19)

• Unlike later, when networks were hidden underground, there was a desire to showcase these networks as urban monuments

• Hence all the very elaborate and ornate water towers, stations, ventilation systems etc.

• Today, these are just relics as infrastructure is hidden or presented in the most utilitarian and bland fashion

A growth agenda• Another strong driver for the adoption and

diffusion of UTNs is the lure of growth, which, again, is related to power

• Indeed, whoever controls the levers of growth in a given territory controls the territory

• By providing the essential resources for growth (water, energy, materials), technical networks are the gateways to territorial growth

Theories that we can use• This is where we can mobilise interesting

theories of the social sciences, such as urban regime theory and urban political ecology

• These theories articulate networks, resources, planning with issues of power and domination

Urban regime theory and ‘growth machines’

• See work by Stone on Atlanta—the classic• Coalition of local actors to boost city growth= ‘growth machine’• They prioritise growth and revenue over the environment or

social issues• Key variable here is price of land: they aim to raise the value of

their landholdings • Water, energy, other networks are key components in the

value of land, because they determine what can be made of it• This theory can help explain why certain cities see the

domination of some groups for decades, e.g Democrats in Boston and New York, Labour in North of England

Urban political ecology• See Swyngedouw, Kaika, In the Nature of Cities• Connecting environment, society and politics• Rejection of nature/city dualism: ‘social

nature’ • The control of flows ensures political power• Cannot think of networks and the resources

they carry without also thinking about power, domination, exclusion etc.

• Coalitions of individuals in various cities through history have explicitly leveraged UTNs to achieve economic growth and power agendas

• Today, we can think of conflicts over farm vs city water use; conflicts between countries over water (Israel/Egypt); conflicts over waste disposal; conflicts over who emits CO2 and how much etc.

• Here are some other examples, which also show that urban regime theory and urban political ecology can be combined

The classic example of Los Angeles and its ‘oligarchy’

• The development of transport networks in the late 19C, and then water and electricity networks in the early to mid 20C, played a key role in the power strategies of the local politico-financial elite, known as the ‘oligarchy’

• They also played a central role in the form and growth of the city, and have had a key impact in recent social, political and environmental issues playing out in the city

A brief history of the city of LA and its ‘oligarchy’

First transport…

Then water and ‘power’

• We clearly see from the LA example that networks can be used in socio-political and socio-environmental strategies

• They were used here to control land and key resources and give the oligarchy its economic and social power

• Social and political realities have changed in the city since then,

• however this original phase of the birth and development of these key networks still structures the local reality in many ways,

• as evidenced by the current continuing water crisis, or the sprawling shape of the city

Conclusions on the development of urban technical networks

• We have seen that urban technical networks have become the backbones of our cities since the C19—in the developed world– in response to a variety of needs: sanitary, population health, efficiency, national defence, but also social control and normalisation, etc.

• They have spread and become more or less universally available in our cities, so that we cannot imagine our lives without them

However…• The spread of networks and seemingly universal

access to reliable systems is not the end of the story!

• Especially in the developing world, where this state of the MII was never achieved, due to a combination of political, economic and social factors

• The developed world, in the last 2-3 decades, has seen challenges to our networked systems, and changing relations between these networks and our cities

An incomplete ideal• In the next section of the course, we will start

examining the holes and gaps in networked systems…

• We will look at how evolving patterns of network governance, such as privatisation and unbundling, are leading to new relationships between societies, cities and infrastructure systems

• One key topic will be dynamics of urban fragmentation, of cities ‘falling apart’ physically and socially