Critical urban infrastructure

The infrastructure age is upon us. Or at least that is the impression given as the task to address growing pressures brought forth by urbanization, under investment of social and public forms of infrastructure (e.g. social housing and public transport) and growing spatial inequality mounts. Big infrastructure projects are variously spruiked on the political stage, serving as lightening rods for community aspirations and frustrations. However alongside the mega-project national economic and security critical infrastructure politics and bluster lies the everyday nature of infrastructure that weaves its way ubiquitously through time, space and place. This is the taken for granted infrastructure that quietly co-exists in the form of digital technology, sewerage systems, energy, communications, global financial systems, food systems, housing, nature strips and urban tree programs etc. - until something goes wrong and human dependencies and vulnerabilities are painfully exposed.