Inverse Infrastructures

'The traditional analysis of infrastructure networks has provided the conceptual rationalization for centralized monopolies for a century. In recent years, liberalization has shown that much wider participation can be beneficial. Innovative development in decentralized networks can be driven from below if government policies permit it, as vividly demonstrated by the Internet. This book contributes to a much needed exploration into the characteristics and implications of decentralized networks being driven from below, introducing new perspectives on the conception and analysis of infrastructure networks.' William H. Melody, Aalborg University, Denmark and Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands The notion of inverse infrastructures that is, bottom-up, user-driven, self-organizing networks gives us a fresh perspective on the omnipresent infrastructure systems that support our economy and structure our way of living. This fascinating book considers the emergence of inverse infrastructures as a new phenomenon that will have a vast impact on consumers, industry and policy. Using a wide range of theories, from institutional economics to complex adaptive systems, it explores the mechanisms and incentives for the rise of these alternatives to large-scale infrastructures and points to their potential disruptive effect on conventional markets and governance models. The approach in this unique book challenges the existing literature on infrastructures, which primarily focuses on large technical systems (LTSs). Rather, this study highlights unprecedented developments, analyzing the differences and complementarity between LTSs and inverse infrastructures. It illustrates that even large infrastructures need not require a blueprint design or top-down and centralized control to run efficiently. The expert contributors draw upon a captivating and wide-ranging set of case studies, including: Wikipedia; wind energy cooperatives, Wireless Leiden, rural telecom in developing countries, local radio and television distribution, the collection of waste paper, syngas infrastructure design, and e-government projects. The book discusses the feasibility of temporary infrastructures and unheard of ownership arrangements, and concludes that inverse networks represent a critical transformation of the accepted model of infrastructure development. Laying a foundation for future research in the area and suggesting ways to bridge the gap between policy and practice, this path-breaking book will prove a riveting read for academics, students and researchers across a number of disciplines including economics, business, management, innovation, and technology and policy studies.

Contributing towards a thriving research area, this comprehensive Handbook presents a broad discussion of infrastructure as social phenomena. It compiles diverse perspectives to delineate the current ‘infrastructural turn’ and assess policy and research challenges relating to contemporary forms of infrastructural development.

This book is an important volume in the series on the state-of-art research in Cartography and GI Science. It is a collection of selected peer-reviewed papers organized into contemporary topics of research, presented at the 27th International Cartographic Conference (ICC) in Rio de Janeiro. This is the 3rd edition of selected ICA conference papers published by Springer Lectures in Geoinformation and Cartography. The conference topic is “maps connecting the world,” and Brazilian cartographers and geo-information scientists are honored to welcome their peers from all over the world to the event, which will present some of the most important recent advances in cartography research and GI science. The most relevant papers will be selected for the Springer book and these will be organized into five sections according to topic area to provide a valuable cartography and GI science reference work

This book addresses a key issue in today’s society: the safer transport of dangerous goods, taking into account people, the environment and economics. In particular, it offers a potential approach to identifying the issues, developing the models, providing the methods and recommending the tools to address the risks and vulnerabilities involved. We believe this can only be achieved by assessing those risks in a comprehensive, quantifiable and integrated manner. Examining both rail and road transportation, the book is divided into three sections, covering: the mature and accepted (by both academia and practitioners) methodology of risk assessment; the vulnerability assessment – a novel approach proposed as a vital complement to risk; guidance and support to build the tools that make methods and equations to yield: the Decision Support Systems. Throughout the book, the authors do not endeavor to provide THE solution. Instead, the book offers insightful food for thought for students, researchers, practitioners and policymakers alike.

As the international economy globalises, there is a need for national infrastructure systems to adapt to form a global infrastructure system. This network of networks aids mobility between national systems as a means of supporting their territorial needs and preferences. This reflects a strategic approach to state infrastructuring as nations seek to utilise these physical systems to support and enhance their territoriality. Providing a thorough examination through the lens of economic infrastructure, the book addresses the forces of integration and fragmentation in global networks. This book explores the trend towards the development of regional infrastructure systems within the context of territorial strategy. Regional systems emerge out of states seeking to position themselves within the international system. Colin Turner identifies the diverse processes that are driving regional infrastructures, as well as examining the formal and informal patterns of integration that are shaping developments. This book is ideal for international political economy and regional development scholars who seek an advanced understanding of current regional infrastructure systems. It will also serve as a vital tool for practitioners who need to understand the implications for policy-making.

Ten years after the first FabLab (a so called fabrication laboratory) was opened at MIT, more than 120 FabLabs exist all over the world. Today, it is time to look back at a decade of FabLab activities. This book shows how small production devices, such as laser cutters and 3D printers, and dedicated educationists, researchers and FabLab practitioners transform the fields of learning, work, production, design, maker culture, law and science on a global scale. In this composition experts from various countries, such as Germany, India or the USA, and distinguished academic institutions, such as MIT or Stanford University, discuss theoretical questions and introduce practical approaches concerning FabLab activities.

Over the course of the past century, there has been a sustained reflective engagement about environmental risks, disasters, and human vulnerability in our modern industrial world. This inquiry has raised a host of crucial questions. Just how safe is humanity in a world of toxic chemicals and industrial installations that have destructive potential? Is it feasible to prevent large-scale catastrophes like the ones in Bhopal, Chernobyl, and Fukushima and smaller-scale disasters such as oil spills and gas leaks? How do environmental hazards affect social and political orders? S. Ravi Rajan expertly synthesizes decades of public policy and academic discourse on how societies measure and ultimately come to terms with risk, danger, and vulnerability and offers a fresh, humanistic perspective for grappling with the new global scale and interconnectedness of these threats.

The relationship between infrastructure governance and the ways we read and represent waste systems, examined through three waste tracking and participatory sensing projects. Waste is material information. Landfills are detailed records of everyday consumption and behavior; much of what we know about the distant past we know from discarded objects unearthed by archaeologists and interpreted by historians. And yet the systems and infrastructures that process our waste often remain opaque. In this book, Dietmar Offenhuber examines waste from the perspective of information, considering emerging practices and technologies for making waste systems legible and how the resulting datasets and visualizations shape infrastructure governance. He does so by looking at three waste tracking and participatory sensing projects in Seattle, São Paulo, and Boston. Offenhuber expands the notion of urban legibility—the idea that the city can be read like a text—to introduce the concept of infrastructure legibility. He argues that infrastructure governance is enacted through representations of the infrastructural system, and that these representations stem from the different stakeholders' interests, which drive their efforts to make the system legible. The Trash Track project in Seattle used sensor technology to map discarded items through the waste and recycling systems; the Forager project looked at the informal organization processes of waste pickers working for Brazilian recycling cooperatives; and mobile systems designed by the city of Boston allowed residents to report such infrastructure failures as potholes and garbage spills. Through these case studies, Offenhuber outlines an emerging paradigm of infrastructure governance based on a complex negotiation among users, technology, and the city.