How Infrastructure Works 1st Edition Deb Chachra by Deb Chachra 9780593086599, 0593086597 instant download after payment.

A soaring bridge is an obvious infrastructural feat, but so are the mostly hidden reservoirs, transformers, sewers, cables, & pipes that deliver water, energy, and & information to wherever we need it. When these systems work well, they hide in plain sight. Engineer & materials scientist Deb Chachra takes readers on a fascinating tour of these essential utilities, revealing how they work, what it takes to keep them running, just how much we rely on them—but also whom they work well for, & who pays the costs. Across the U.S. & elsewhere, these systems are suffering from systemic neglect & the effects of climate change, becoming unavoidably visible when they break down. Communities that are already marginalized often bear the brunt of these failures. But Chachra maps out a path for transforming & rebuilding our shared infrastructure to be not just functional but also equitable, resilient, & sustainable. The cost of not being able to rely on these systems is unthinkably high. We need to learn how to see them—& fix them, together—before it’s too late.

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Rather than offering nitty-gritty explanations of how a power grid operates, though, this book articulates something of a philosophy of infrastructure: both a convincing call for us to think harder about these systems & a road map for how we might do so productively, particularly as climate change threatens to destabilize our aging public works. Chachra’s vision is positive, even galvanizing. I ca