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Infrastructure is the kind of thing you should forget about.鈥�

鈥淰ery often you鈥檙e reminded about the importance of infrastructure when it malfunctions.

鈥淪o, ‘infra’ meaning ‘under’ illuminates the idea that it鈥檚 a fundamental level that makes the deployment of activities possible.

鈥�For example, road infrastructure enables circulation. Telephone networks enable phone calls.鈥�

Though most of the public might not think of it that way, communications is a major aspect of infrastructure.”

鈥淏efore the telephone and subsequent telephone switchboards and exchanges in the late 19^th聽century, communication was cumbersome and the range restricted. As technology develops, new aspects of infrastructure bounce into notice.

鈥淯ntil the early 1990s, most people hadn鈥檛 heard of the Internet, and most wouldn鈥檛 have considered it as a part of infrastructure.

鈥淚n 2020, during the pandemic, the Internet and Wi-Fi connections became essential to work, education, health care, and more.鈥�

Cities, states, and the federal government … have invested insufficiently in the physical infrastructure.”

鈥淏ridges, roads, waterways and even hospital and school buildings have deteriorated. Governments reduce their capital budgets in time of scarcity.

鈥淎nd even in good times these entities tend not to invest sufficiently in preventative maintenance.鈥�

Infrastructure spending can reduce unemployment in several ways.”

鈥淔irst are the direct jobs created when investments are made in maintenance and repair as well as adding new infrastructure, such as electric vehicle charging stations or new bicycle paths.

鈥淪econd are the indirect jobs created when businesses, including neighborhood small businesses, can reach new customers because of better Wi-Fi or faster deliveries, for example, and thus can expand their markets and hire more workers.

鈥淭hird are the ways that better infrastructure helps people get to a job in the first place.鈥�

Green infrastructure could have three meanings.”

鈥淥ne, it can refer to how we build鈥攖hink using less asphalt and including more green in road designs and requiring better energy consumption in permitting building uses.

鈥淭wo, green includes the supports for a more sustainable economy鈥攆or example renewables.

鈥淎nd three 鈥� better management of wastewater including planting green and adding ponds instead of allowing runoff which overflows sewers and damages rivers.”

We no longer live in a classic world where there鈥檚 nature on the one side and technology on the other.”

鈥淲e live in a techno-natural world. That means that, if we want to fight climate change, for example, we鈥檒l have to use a combination of technology and nature.

鈥淐hina, for example, has started using planted wet zones to deal with possible flooding. So, in many ways, we see the beginning of a blurring between nature and infrastructure.

“If we want to really fight against climate change we need to mobilize natural resources as well as artificial things. We need both.”