How Infrastructure Works

1. Infrastructure Extends Human Agency

Common infrastructural systems—water, sewage, electricity, natural gas, transportation, and communications—are amazing in that they make it possible for me to live the kind of life that I want to live, a life of comfort, agency, diversion, and connection to others.

Beyond biological limits. Infrastructure acts as a collective cyborg, augmenting our individual capabilities far beyond what our bodies alone can achieve. Access to systems like electricity for light, gas for heat, or transportation networks allows us to overcome physical limitations like darkness, cold, or distance, granting us unprecedented power and freedom in our daily lives.

Empowerment through access. These systems provide essential resources and services on demand, freeing up time and energy that would otherwise be spent on basic survival tasks. This liberation from drudgery, historically borne disproportionately by women, enables individuals to pursue education, economic opportunities, and personal fulfillment, fundamentally reshaping what is possible for billions of people.

Interfaces to power. Our homes and devices serve as personal interfaces to vast, continent-spanning systems. Flipping a light switch connects us to the entire electrical grid; driving a car puts us in control of significant exogenous energy. These seemingly mundane interactions are daily reminders of the immense collective power harnessed by infrastructure, making us part of a "cyborg collective."

2. Infrastructure is Built on Powerful Networks

What makes networks special is not just that they’re collective but that they can also be synergistic: the more people who use them, the more valuable they become for everyone.

Flow and efficiency. Many infrastructural systems are networks designed to move resources efficiently. Water flows downhill through pipes, electricity moves through wires, and data travels through cables. Networks leverage physical principles to deliver resources with less energy and cost than individual provision, making services like municipal water or electricity cheaper and more accessible as more users connect.

Density and scale. Networks benefit from density and scale. In cities, proximity makes connecting households easier and cheaper. Larger networks amortize the cost of infrastructure and centralized facilities over more users, creating economies of networks that drive the association between infrastructure and urban centers.

Connectivity and value. Beyond simple flow, networks like transportation and telecommunications enable connections between nodes (people, places). The value of these networks increases exponentially with the number of connected users, fostering sociality, trade, and communication. This inherent value of universal access is a key reason why infrastructure is often considered a public good.

3. Global Cooperation Relies on Standards

Standards provide a way to hide, and therefore manage, the complexity of systems.

Enabling interoperability. Standards are agreed-upon rules and specifications that allow different parts of vast, complex systems to work together seamlessly. From the physical dimensions of shipping containers to the protocols of the internet, standards ensure compatibility and smooth operation across diverse technologies and geographies.

Infrastructure for infrastructure. Foundational standards like global mapping (GPS) and standardized time are essential underpinnings for many other infrastructural networks. Their development paralleled and enabled the growth of transportation and communication systems, providing a unified framework for locating points in time and space worldwide.

Managing complexity. Standards modularize and "black-box" complex technologies, making them manageable and interchangeable without requiring complete understanding of their internal workings. This allows for advanced cooperation among specialists and enables the creation of technological systems far too complex for any single individual to fully grasp or build alone.

4. Infrastructure Embodies Social & Political Values

Infrastructural systems have been an important means of empowering groups to have full civic and economic participation, so they’re not just the result of politics—they embody and enable politics.

Physical manifestation of norms. Infrastructure is a physical embodiment of a community's values and norms. Decisions about what gets built, where, and for whom reflect societal priorities, whether it's universal access to clean water or the design of transportation networks.

From service to right. As technologies become essential utilities, they often transition towards being recognized as political rights. This progression, driven by cultural norms and political activism, ensures access regardless of economic status, preventing disenfranchisement as systems become ubiquitous and alternatives disappear.

Empowerment and participation. Access to reliable infrastructure underpins civic and economic participation. Historically, the build-out of systems like water, electricity, and transportation coincided with expansions of social rights and enfranchisement, demonstrating the reciprocal relationship between infrastructure and political agency.

5. Infrastructure Centralizes Benefits, Displaces Harms

Infrastructural networks could be fairly described as vast constructions whose purpose is to centralize resources and agency to a small fraction of extremely privileged humans and to displace the harms to many others.

Unequal distribution. Infrastructure is designed to concentrate resources and benefits in specific locations and for particular groups. Simultaneously, the negative consequences of extraction, production, consumption, and waste are often displaced onto other communities or environments, creating "sacrifice zones."

Externalizing costs. Harms like pollution, environmental degradation, noise, and congestion are often treated as negative externalities, costs borne by those not directly benefiting from the system. Wealthier communities can often mitigate or displace these harms, while less wealthy or marginalized groups disproportionately suffer the consequences.

Historical inequities. This pattern is deeply rooted in histories of colonialism, racism, and economic inequality. Decisions about siting highways through low-income neighborhoods or building dams that displace Indigenous communities reflect and perpetuate existing power imbalances, making infrastructure a physical manifestation of systemic injustice.

6. Infrastructure is Vulnerable to Failure & Neglect

Bringing down infrastructural systems doesn’t require hackers or munitions. It just takes failing to provide the expertise, care, and investment that keeps them running continuously and safely.

Multiple failure modes. Infrastructure faces threats from malicious attacks (physical or cyber), natural disasters (gray swans), and chronic undermaintenance (red termites). While attacks grab headlines, gradual degradation due to neglect is a pervasive and often invisible threat.

Undermaintenance risks. Chronic underinvestment in inspection, maintenance, and repair leads to accumulated damage. This erosion of structural integrity or system capacity increases vulnerability, making systems more likely to fail unexpectedly or catastrophically, especially when stressed by unusual conditions.

Consequences of neglect. Failures due to undermaintenance are not just inconvenient; they have significant societal costs, including economic disruption, loss of agency, and even loss of life. The neglect of essential systems can be seen as a form of "organized abandonment," disproportionately affecting marginalized communities.

7. Climate Change Threatens & is Driven by Infrastructure

Anthropogenic climate change poses a threat to infrastructural systems, but our infrastructural systems are also the biggest contributor to climate change.

Double-edged sword. Infrastructure is essential for responding to climate change impacts (evacuation routes, resilient power grids) but is also highly vulnerable to them (heat buckling rails, floods overwhelming treatment plants, drought depleting reservoirs).

Fossil fuel dependence. The vast majority of energy powering global infrastructure comes from burning fossil fuels, directly contributing to the greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change. This creates a self-defeating cycle where using infrastructure exacerbates the very conditions that threaten its functionality.

Beyond design limits. Climate instability means more frequent and intense extreme weather events that exceed the historical "design days" for which infrastructure was built. This requires significant adaptation, redesign, and rebuilding to ensure systems can function in a rapidly changing and unpredictable environment.

8. Individual Action Cannot Solve Infrastructure's Climate Impact

What this showed us, powerfully, is that individual, voluntary actions aren’t the main driver of our collective greenhouse gas emissions.

Collective emissions. The bulk of energy usage and associated greenhouse gas emissions are mediated through shared infrastructural systems (power generation, industrial production, goods transport) that serve millions, not individuals.

The "carbon footprint" myth. The concept of the individual "carbon footprint," popularized by fossil fuel companies, shifts responsibility from systemic issues to personal choices. While reducing individual energy use is valuable, it cannot fundamentally alter the emissions profile of large-scale collective systems.

Systemic change needed. Even radical personal sacrifices, like eliminating air travel, have a minuscule impact on overall emissions compared to the scale of industrial and infrastructural energy consumption. Addressing climate change requires transforming the systems themselves, which can only be achieved through collective action and policy changes.

9. Renewable Energy Enables Abundance, Not Scarcity

Transitioning rapidly and completely into renewable, decarbonized sources of power is how humanity can access unprecedented energy abundance.

Decoupling energy and emissions. Renewable energy sources like solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal allow us to generate power without combustion, breaking the link between energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions.

Abundant potential. The amount of renewable energy available on Earth, particularly solar radiation, is vastly more than humanity's current or projected future energy needs. This means a transition to renewables can lead to energy abundance, not scarcity or rationing.

Transforming the problem. Instead of focusing on reducing energy consumption (a scarcity mindset), we can focus on increasing the proportion of energy derived from renewable sources. This technological transformation enables continued access to the benefits of energy without the self-defeating cost of climate change.

10. Transforming Infrastructure Requires Rethinking Materials & Design

There are no infrastructural systems, on any scale, that can be functional without also being sustainable, resilient, and equitable.

Beyond unsustainable practices. Sustainable infrastructure requires moving away from systems reliant on extracting nonrenewable resources or dispersing pollution. This means fundamentally rethinking material lifecycles, prioritizing reuse and circularity over linear extraction-to-waste models.

Resilience over efficiency. In a changing climate, infrastructure must be resilient, able to absorb uncertainty and recover quickly from disruptions. This requires building in buffers, redundancy, diversity, and decentralization, moving away from brittle, just-in-time optimization.

Flexibility and responsiveness. Given rapid technological evolution and climate uncertainty, future infrastructure should be flexible, modular, and adaptable rather than monolithic and irreversible. This allows for experimentation, local specificity, and the ability to evolve systems over time.

11. Infrastructure is Collective Care & Citizenship

Our shared infrastructural future is a commitment to our shared humanity.

Care at scale. Infrastructure is a powerful form of collective care, providing for basic human needs and enabling agency for billions. It requires ongoing human labor, expertise, and investment to function reliably, embodying a commitment to mutual well-being.

Infrastructural citizenship. Being embedded in shared infrastructure creates a form of citizenship rooted in place and mutual reliance, extending to both present and future generations. It carries a responsibility to sustainably steward common resources and ensure equitable access for all.

Building a better future. Recognizing infrastructure as a public good, prioritizing nonmonetary benefits, and moving towards community-led, care-first systems are essential for building a resilient, sustainable, and equitable future. This transformation is not just technological, but a fundamental shift in how we organize ourselves and care for each other and the planet.

Last updated: May 3, 2025