Infrastructural Ecologies: Alternative Development Models for Emerging Economies

by Hillary Brown, Byron Stigge

Overview

An integrated, holistic model for infrastructure planning and design in developing countries.

Many emerging nations, particularly those least developed, lack basic critical infrastructural services—affordable energy, clean drinking water, dependable sanitation, and effective public transportation, along with reliable food systems. Many of these countries cannot afford the complex and resource-intensive systems based on Western, single-sector, industrialized models. In this book, Hillary Brown and Byron Stigge propose an alternate model for planning and designing infrastructural services in the emerging market context. This new model is holistic and integrated, resilient and sustainable, economical and equitable, creating an infrastructural ecology that is more analogous to the functioning of natural ecosystems.

Brown and Stigge identify five strategic infrastructure objectives and illustrate each with examples of successful projects from across the developing world. Each chapter also highlights exemplary preindustrial systems, demonstrating the long history of resilient, sustainable infrastructure. The case studies describe the use of single solutions to solve multiple problems, creating hybridized and reciprocal systems; “soft path” models for water management, including water reuse and nutrient recovery; post carbon infrastructures for power, heat, and transportation such as rural microhydro and solar-powered rickshaws; climate adaptation systems, including a multi-purpose tunnel and a “floating city”; and the need for community-based, equitable, and culturally appropriate projects.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262533867
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	06/02/2017
Series:	The MIT Press
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Hillary Brown is Principal of the consulting firm New Civic Works and Professor of Architecture at City College of New York, where she directs its interdisciplinary program in Urban Sustainability. As Assistant Commissioner at New York City's Department of Design and Construction, she founded its Office of Sustainable Design in 1996.

Byron Stigge is Founder of the Level Agency for Infrastructure, a New York City based infrastructure planning and engineering firm implementing projects predominantly in developing countries.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

1 Introduction: Closing the Infrastructure Gap 1

Learning from Caracol, Haiti 2

The Promise of Infrastructural Ecology 4

The Roots of the Infrastructure Gap 5

Infrastructural Ecology: Why and How 11

Industrial Symbiosis as a Model for Infrastructural Ecology: Two Examples 12

The Organization of This Book: The Five Objectives of Infrastructural Ecology 16

Imperatives for Infrastructural Ecologies 18

2 Solving for Pattern: From Interconnected to Symbiotic Systems 19

Preindustrial Ingenuity: Multifunctional River Crossings and Agro-Infrastructure 21

Simple Integration: Colocated Systems 25

Commensalist Associations 29

Reciprocity across Service Sectors 35

Integrating Multiple Systems: Toward a Circular Economy 40

Forward Thinking 46

3 The Soft Path: Aligning Water Infrastructure with Natural Systems 47

Multiple-Use Water Systems 48

Capture and Storage for Water Sufficiency 52

Green Infrastructure at Work in Emerging Economies 60

Water Reuse and Nutrient Recovery: Sustainable Imperatives for the Anthropocene 69

Heading Down the Soft Path 75

4 Post-Carbon Infrastructure: Power, Heat, and Transport 77

Emerging Economies and the Carbon Challenge 77

Alternative Power Production 80

Alternative Heat Production 92

Managing Waste for Energy 95

Decarbonizing Transportation 107

Low-Carbon Paths Forward 113

5 Climate-Adaptive Infrastructure: Responding to Changing Conditions 115

Coastal Protection and Adaptation: Hard and Soft Strategies 116

Inland Adaptations 128

Cross-Sector Solutions for Water Security 132

Looking Ahead: Climate and Infrastructural Ecologies 144

6 Infrastructural Coproduction: Inclusionary and Participatory Development 147

Decentralization and Community-Based Participation: Moving beyond Tokenism 151

Partnering for Service Provision 161

Entrepreneurship and Comprehensive Citizen Control 169

Stepping Up the Ladder 174

7 Implementing Infrastructural Ecologies: Improving the Odds 175

"How Are We Going to Pay for That?" 176

"Too Slow and Not Our Scope" 181

"That's Not How We Do It Here" 186

"Will the Next Administration Support This?" 189

Ways Forward 192

8 Putting the Five Objectives into Practice 193

Objective 1 Relational Solutions 193

Objective 2 Ecological Alignments 196

Objective 3 Low-Carbon Processes 199

Objective 4 Resilient Constructions 202

Objective 5 Codevelopment 205

Haiti Redux: A "Future-Proof" Vision? 207

Conclusion 211

Summary of Case Study Infrastruclural Ecologies 213

Notes 235

Acronyms 281

Glossary 285

Recommended Readings 293

Index 297

What People are Saying About This

Hashim Sarkis

Through rich and carefully selected examples, the book convincingly shows how infrastructure can be reconceived to be more efficient, interconnected, and sustainable. Importantly, it also shows how infrastructure can play a crucial role in building the collective imaginary of future societies.

Helen Lochhead

Brown and Stigge make a compelling case for systems thinking and collaborative, integrated approaches that embody low carbon, resilient, place-specific solutions that deliver much more than infrastructure to their communities, over the short and long term, thus providing lessons for us all.

Endorsement

This is a fascinating book which treads the line between academia and practice, bringing invaluable insights to infrastructural ecologies as a fruitful way to view the challenges of development. The authors draw on myriad real examples of best practice and display profound understanding.

—Peter Guthrie, Professor of Engineering for Sustainable Development, University of Cambridge

From the Publisher

Through rich and carefully selected examples, the book convincingly shows how infrastructure can be reconceived to be more efficient, interconnected, and sustainable. Importantly, it also shows how infrastructure can play a crucial role in building the collective imaginary of future societies.

—Hashim Sarkis, Dean, School of Architecture and Planning, MIT

This book shifts the dialog to case-based paradigms of infrastructure systems for effectively meeting the huge demands of developing nations, without seriously compromising the environment.

—Spiro N. Pollalis, Professor of Design, Technology and Management, Harvard Design School

Brown and Stigge make a compelling case for systems thinking and collaborative, integrated approaches that embody low carbon, resilient, place-specific solutions that deliver much more than infrastructure to their communities, over the short and long term, thus providing lessons for us all.

—Helen Lochhead, architect and urbanist; Dean, Built Environment, University of New South Wales, Sydney

This is a fascinating book which treads the line between academia and practice, bringing invaluable insights to infrastructural ecologies as a fruitful way to view the challenges of development. The authors draw on myriad real examples of best practice and display profound understanding.

—Peter Guthrie, Professor of Engineering for Sustainable Development, University of Cambridge

Peter Guthrie

This is a fascinating book which treads the line between academia and practice, bringing invaluable insights to infrastructural ecologies as a fruitful way to view the challenges of development. The authors draw on myriad real examples of best practice and display profound understanding.

Spiro N. Pollalis

This book shifts the dialog to case-based paradigms of infrastructure systems for effectively meeting the huge demands of developing nations, without seriously compromising the environment.