Overview

Clean water, paved roads, public transit, electricity and gas, sewers, waste processing, telecommunication, even the Internet – all this infrastructure is what makes cities work and powers our lives, often seamlessly and silently. Virtually everything we do and consume depends on infrastructure. Yet, most people have little to no idea how these systems work. How is water treated? Why do traffic jams exist? How is electricity generated and distributed? What happens to trash after it is picked up? How does the Internet work? In The Infrastructure Book, world-renown urban engineering expert Sybil Derrible reveals the behind-the-scenes machinations of the foundational systems that make our societies function. Visiting sixteen cities around the world and their unique approaches to organizational challenges – from city planning in Los Angeles to waste management in Tokyo, Chicago’s power grid to Shanghai’s unique take on traffic, public transportation in the busiest cities and water treatment in the driest deserts – this highly readable book uses fascinating case studies and historical detours to show how infrastructure works – and, sometimes, doesn’t. With large-scale infrastructure repairs looming, and the need for our current infrastructure to be completely transformed if we hope to be sustainable and resilient into the future. After reading The Infrastructure Book, readers will never look at a city the same way.

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9781493086641

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Reviews

""Common sense can be so uncommon, but it pervades this thoughtful and entertaining volume. The Infrastructure Book is an easy-to-digest and right-headed primer on the cities hidden beneath our cities."" ""Like a magician revealing the secrets of how amazing things happen, Sybil Derrible describes in fascinating detail the underlying foundation of our social fabric. The Infrastructure Book is a must-read.""

Author Information

Sybil Derrible is a Professor of Urban Engineering and the Director of the Complex and Sustainable Urban Networks (CSUN) Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). He is a world-renown scholar on infrastructure and a Lead Author on the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) Seventh Global Environment Outlook (GEO-7) report. Sybil Derrible is the current chair of the AMR10 Critical Transportation Infrastructure Protection Committee with the Transportation Research Board (TRB) and the past chair of the Sustainable Urban Systems section with the International Society for Industrial Ecology (ISIE). His research interests lie at the nexus of infrastructure planning and design, urban metabolism, and complexity and data science. He teaches on urban engineering and data science.

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