Talk:Infrastructure/Archive 1

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Archive 1 Archive 2

worldbank.org external link

This link: Private Participation in Infrastructure Database

Was added by an editor whose only contributions have been to promote the World Bank Group. We have recently uncovered significant edits promoting this organization (see this WikiProject Spam discussion). In the interest of our neutral point of view policy and conflict of interest guideline I've moved it here for other editors to consider. Thanks. -- Siobhan Hansa 20:40, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've hacked this around a bit to try and improve it and make it a bit less of a "mush of an article". Hopefully it's better and easier to read. I've also provided another reference, as well as links to Asset Management and other relevant articles. Still needs work though - any feedback, comments etc welcome. OceanKiwi (talk) 18:52, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

January 2009 revision

I am a civil engineer at a consulting firm in Montreal, and I design infrastructure for a living. With all the recent talk about governments investing in infrastructure in order to alleviate the current economic crisis, I wanted a clear idea of what exactly is infrastructure, so I looked it up on Wikipedia. I was surprised that there was not a list of different types of infrastructure, so I added one (the section called "Infrastructure assets categorized by function")(Since renamed "Types of Infrastructure"), which includes references to the relevant Wikipedia pages. I later realised that the original article already had such a list, but that it had been erased in september 2006.

I also greatly shortened the introductory paragraph by creating a new section called "Related concepts and various uses of the term"(Since split into two sections), and putting most of the original information here. The section on "Critical infrastructure" was also included with this new section (now included with "Various Uses of the Term"). I also clarified or added related concepts such as "public works", "public services" and "land improvements", with links to the relevant wiki pages.

The title of the section "History" was changed to "History of the term".

It is clear to me that the definition of "infrastructure" varies somewhat according to the discipline using the term. Engineers use it in a limited sense to describe large structures that generally take the form of a network instead of a building or an industrial plant. Military planners and developmental economist take a more general view and include basic public, financial and security services.

I know the article could be shortened, but I hesitate to erase other people's work. Please feel free to abbreviate, improve on or to add to any of my contributions. 

- Alex Plante, P. Eng.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by AlexPlante (talk • contribs) 16:54, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

AlexPlante (talk) 19:07, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

History

On the weekend of January 17-18 I started a new "History" section. My technique is to cut and paste extracts from the history sections of the various articles about specific types of infrastructure, and then try to reduce these extracts to a brief summary. I'm afraid this will take a few more weekends. Until then I've left stubs. I admit that the extracts that I have included could be reduced further AlexPlante (talk) 04:08, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

This is taking longer than I thought it would. It's also too long. AlexPlante (talk) 23:15, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Future sections

In the economics section I would like to add a subsection indicating the value of infrastructure assets, as well as the value of annual investment in infrastructure. I know that statistics Canada has published a few studies on the subject, but I would also like to get US and other country information. My guess is that for most industrial economies infrastructure investment represent approx. 1 to 2% of GDP and approx. 10 to 20% of physical assets in the economy. 

   I posted some data for the US, I need to find some info from other countries.AlexPlante (talk) 23:17, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I would also like to create a section on the design and construction of infrastructure (which is what I do for a living). Who does it? (mainly civil engineers, but also urbanists and electrical engineers) What are the major steps? (feasibility studies, impact studies, detailed engineering, the tendering process, construction) 

   This I did several weeks ago AlexPlante (talk) 23:17, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

AlexPlante (talk) 04:18, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Oil Rocks

I added a photo of the Oil Rocks under the engery infrastructure headline, which is a oil-town created in 1947. Neftchi (talk) 18:29, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Explanation

What does "In subsequent years, the word has grown in popularity and been applied with increasing generality to suggest the internal framework discernible in any technology system or business organization." mean?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.67.177.132 (talk) 17:17, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Scope of infrastructure

In the section "Types of infrastructure" I've limited the list to fixed assets that take the form of a network or are the critical nodes of a network. However some public services and private businesses perform very similar functions, namely:

  • Municipal bus transport
  • Municipal garbage and recyclables collection
  • Petroleum and natural gas transport by tanker ships and trucks
  • Petroleum refineries
  • The postal service
  • Ferry service

These services perform many of the same type of services that infrastructure does (i.e. conveyance of people, vehicles, energy, information, etc..) However intead of being fixed assets they are networks of vehicles that follow regularly scheduled routes. They also depend on critical nodes that are fixed assets (bus terminals and maintenance centres, waste disposal facilities, petroleum refineries, petroleum and natural gas distribution terminals, postal sorting centres, etc..). It hardly seems logical to include electricity generation plants with infrastructure, but not oil refineries. Nor is it logical to include trams and trolleys, but not busses. Furthermore, although I haven't said so explicitely in the article, in the case of railways, subways, tramways, etc.. I think that the rolling stock should be included as part of "infrastructure".

Although these are services, those performing the "service" rarely have any contact with the "client", and indeed no contact is required to perform the service. This is very different from schools, hospitals and emergency services, where some sort of social or even physical contact between the service providers and "clients" is essential.

This question needs more thought and research.

AlexPlante (talk) 04:48, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I would appreciate some feedback on this question. AlexPlante (talk) 23:19, 14 February 2009 (UTC)


In my view a service or facility is within the definition of infrastructure when the following criteria are fulfilled:

  1. The service or facility has one or many important services that are dependent upon it, or the service or facility is in itself crucial.
  2. Significant cost (broad definition of cost, including ecological, political, social, etc.) are involved in replacing the service or facility
  3. There is a risk of loosing the service or facility —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hulagutten (talk • contribs) 22:06, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I believe the best way to judge whether a service or facility should be defined as infrastructure is to think about the consequenses if the service or facility did not function or suddenly had poorer quality for, say, half a year.

If this definition is used then both "Pneumatic tube mail distribution networks" and "Solid waste landfills" should be relatively easy to replace the current services and facilities (other distribution networks and new landfills). At least when one compares to a thing like a country's legal system. A legal system could for example suddenly be replaced with Sharia law, as we have seen examples of in parts of Pakistan.

Another argument for including the legal system is an example I saw some time back when the Greek government seemed powerless to implement effective laws against human trafficking. This was apparently due the problem that any effective laws would stand in direct conflict with other existing laws (I do not remeber whether the other laws were included in the constitution). This means that the Greeks did not have the proper infrastructure in place to tackle this problem or similar problems. There are many other examples of legal systems that hinder essential facilities or services.

I would also say that the political system should be included, for much the same reasons as legal system.

When it comes to global warming it seems like the rain forests provide an essential part of the protection against global warming. Defining rain forests as infrastructure, would, however turn the world upside-down in a good way, I believe. --hulagutten (talk) 21:33, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

As a civil engineer, I've tended to look at infrastructure as something that you build, except that instead of being in one location, such as a building or an industrial plant, it takes the form of a network spread over a large area. So I included in the scope all physical networks or parts of networks without taking into account how essential they are. In your approach, you focus on the "essentialness" of infrastructure, and less on what physical properties it has. I think both approaches capture some of the flavour of "infrastructure". We need some way of combining both approaches without being so broad that everything becomes "infrastructure". Something can be very essential (such as the air we breathe) without being infrastructure. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of having 2 separate lists, one for "hard" infrastructure, which would essentially take my engineering approach of only considering physical networks, and another for "soft" infrastructure, which would focus more on facilities and systems (generally non-physical systems) that provide structure and allow essential services to be performed. AlexPlante (talk) 07:49, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

"Soft" Infrastructure

Following the addition of a category for "financial infrastructure", I'm wondering if this cannot be expanded into a more general category of "Soft" infrastructure. This would include:

  • Educational infrastructure
  • Health Care infrastructure
  • Financial infrastructure
  • Emergency services infrastructure
  • Police, law enforcement, justice and penal infrastructure
  • Sports and recreational infrastructure
  • Cultural infrastructure
  • Trade and commercial infrastructure
  • Tourism infrastructure


In all these cases, the infrastructure would consist of the highly speciallized buildings and equipment, plus the body of rules and regulations governing the various systems, plus the systems and organizations by which highly skilled and specialized professionals are trained, advance in their careers by acquiring experience, and are disciplined (if required) by professional associations (professional training, accreditation and discipline), plus the complicated financing of these systems (often a mixture of fees + insurance + taxes + donations, etc..).

We've got to be careful with this aproach, because looked at this way, everything can become "infrastructure".

I use the term "Soft" infrastructure, because instead of focussing on massive engineered physical networks ("Hard" infrastructure), there is a much greater emphasis on the institutions and systems that allow skilled professionals to supply services to people. AlexPlante (talk) 02:09, 16 June 2010 (UTC)


I would like to see all of these categories included apart from

  • Cultural infrastructure
  • Sports and recreational infrastructure

The reason is that a these phenomenons will continue to exist even without any supporting infrastructure. The people have practiced sports, recreation and culture throughout history without the support of infrastructure. I, though, know that things like "high-culture" have a habit of being exibited or performed in expensive buildings, but they can just was well be exibited or performed in other places.

To make create the overall kategory of "soft infrastructure" is a good idea. Just do it! --hulagutten (talk) 19:38, 17 June 2010 (UTC)


I'm insanely busy until the end of June (I'm working on several commuter train infrastructure projects).

In fact, all of the activities listed above could exist without supporting infrastructure, but at a more primitive level. You're excluding cultural and sports infrastructure not because they would continue without infrastructure, because you do not consider them to be "essential".

I think there's a more subtle point you may be mis-understanding about "Soft" infrastructure. Take the example of Health Care infrastructure. In my mind, the entire health care system in not "infrastructure", but is rather an essential service. The heart of "health care" is doctors and other medical professionals providing individually-tailored services to their patients. The personal relationship between professional and patient is central to the system, and by its nature is contrary to what I see as the impersonal, anonymous and standardised nature of the services provided by true "infrastructure". When I speak of "Health care infrastructure", I do not mean the entire health care system, but rather the parts of the system that includes the facilities and organizational forms that allow the professionals to provide health care services to their patients. So in other words, Health care is NOT infrastructure (even though it's an essential service), but HAS an infrastructure. The infrastructure is the "system" part of the health care system, not the "health care" part. Health care is an essential service, but not in and of itself "infrastructure". AlexPlante (talk) 08:10, 18 June 2010 (UTC)


You have done an excellent job with the article!

You have a really good point that healthcare HAS infrastructure, but is not infrastructure itself.

I have thought some more about whether sports and cultural infrastructure should be included. I believe that one should be very strict with something having to be "essential" for a society in order to be infrastructure. If we are not strict about this, then one could make perfectly valid arguments that smuggler networks is a form of infrastructure, because it enables the consumption of illegal substances. These networks take a lot of time to build, because they are based on mutual trust in all parts of the chain, as there is no functioning legal system in the underworld. They also require an underworld code-of-conduct in order not to self-destruct.

There could be different opinions on whether the world would be a better place without such illegal substances, especially when it comes to the lighter drugs, which is an essential part of many sub-cultures. Similarly, there are different opinions on whether the world would be a better place without things like high-culture, which require large amounts of public funds being spent on things like Opera buildings (I should mention that I am a decent classical violinist, myself).

Therefore, I would like to exclude sports and cultural infrastructure, because they are not essential.--hulagutten (talk) 13:30, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I find it useful to Google expressions to see how others use them. I included sports and cultural infrastructure because it often includes big expensive facilities that are often publicly funded (sometimes using budgets reserved for "infrastructure"). Anyway, here's an example of what I was talking about: http://news.gc.ca/web/article-eng.do?m=/index&nid=525469 —Preceding unsigned comment added by AlexPlante (talk • contribs) 02:24, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

But do you agree, then, that smuggler networks should be included as well? If not, please explain the reason why it should not. Similarly, I do not believe that the pyramids should be considered infrastructure, even though they were huge civil engineering projects. This also goes for various statues, and monuments. We have to consider how important those things are for the society. --hulagutten (talk) 22:41, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Don't laugh, but according to the US government, monuments are considered "critical infrastructure" http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/RL32631.pdf

Not all infrastructure is critical. Here's a list of what the Canadian government considers to be "infrastructure": http://www.buildingcanada-chantierscanada.gc.ca/creating-creation/isf-fsi-guide-eng.html

As a Canadian, I can attest that it is essential for every small town and city district to have a their own hockey areana, or the country will collapse. (joke).

More seriously, we must remember that this is an encyclopedia, so we must explain terms as they are used in reality by serious people and organizations. If you can find a reference where a serious government is willing to subsidize drug smuggling infrastructure, maybe we should include it.

I'm considering including the warehousing, shipping and computerised accounting systems of major retailing chains as infrastructure, but I need to do more Googling to confirm if others (especially serious organisations) also consider that to be the case. AlexPlante (talk) 02:40, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

You are absolutely right. We have to follow uses that can be referenced with reliable sources. Thank you for discussing this with me. --hulagutten (talk) 07:31, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Ideas

I'm toying with the following ideas:

"Hard" vs "Soft" Infrastructure:

I'm becoming less satisfied with the naming of these two categories. I'm thinking of renaming "Hard Infrastructure" "Technical Networks" or "Engineered Infrastructure" or something like that, but I cannot think of a satisfactory name. I'm also thinking of renaming "Soft Infrastructure" "Social and Institutional Infrastructure", except that creates a problem with the subtitles, and it's also a clunky title.

Here's the problem: I think it would make more sense to refer to the "Hard" part of infrastructure as anything that's built, whereas the "Soft" part of infrastructure as the organizational systems and rules including computer, data and control systems. Using that distinction, what I've called "Hard" and "Soft" infrastructure include both "Hard" and "Soft" components.

"Green" Infrastructure:

I'm thinking of mentioning something about "Green" infrastructure, which is essentially the use of natural systems to provide some of the services traditionally provided by "hard" built systems (for example using wetlands to improve water quality), or the restoration of natural system that had been previously "engineered" (such as the re-naturalisation of waterways that had been turned into ditches, or the replacement of shoreline retaining walls with vegetated banks along lakes and rivers, to control erosion, etc..) I would also include the managed pseudo-natural areas created or managed for public enjoyment, such as naturalistic parcs, urban trees and vegetation, etc..

To tie in with the previous paragraph, "Green" infrastructure is sonetimes called "Soft" infrastructure, especially when one refers to building naturalistic systems that perform the function of what would traditionnaly be a hard-built structure (for example using an engineered wetland to clean wastewater or improve the water quality of stormwater run-off)

Comments or feedback would be appreciated.

(This is AlexPlante, I forgot to log in) 74.57.236.63 (talk) 09:43, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, this should be included if the concept of infrastructure can be stretched so far as tourism.
Also, green infrastructure can be a type of hard infrastructure - i.e. aiding recharge of groundwater an area might depend on, for now I've added a link to "See also"
Nnnudibranch 07:15, 16 December 2010 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nnnudibranch (talk • contribs)

Not useful as it stands

I find it very difficult to use this page. It contains a complete mish-mash of ideas that do not provide me with a simple and useful description of infrastructures. To many, including myself, the word "infrastructure" refers to physical entities. To the authors, it refers to almost anything.

For example, I am currently researching a letter to my representatives (Federal, state, county, and local). I wish to remind them that the infrastructures of the United States are in serious need of their collective concerns. I was planning to use Wikipedia as a foundation upon which to build a list of things that needed repair. But when reading the article I found myself being drawn into tangential areas. The section "Uses of the term" is not needed - it is a source of foolery (e.g., "Marxism"). I'm sure to many, there is such a thing as "green" infrastructure. But I cannot tell a Senator that he needs to fund such a need.

Maybe the political needs to be cleansed from this article. I am not qualified to perform the task. But I know it needs to be performed.

Gggustafson (talk) 21:42, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Capital programmes

After seeing a few mentions of "Capital programmes" on the BBC website, I created this temporary redirect to Infrastructure. It's not the ideal target because there's no mention of it here, but I could find no better place. Could anyone help improve this? For reference this UK source defines it as the "investment in replacement assets to maintain existing assets ...".

Apropos the above Infrastructure planning section, a possibly related term is infrastructure assets, but I'm not familiar with this area to even attempt a stub. -84user (talk) 20:52, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Public infrastructure is a mere collection of wikilinks. Anyone here care to merge it into this article? --EnOreg (talk) 14:01, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree, "someone" should... AlexPlante (talk) 12:09, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

No, public infrastructure should not be merged into infrastructure. Infrastructure is bigger topic than public infrastructure which refers to infrastructure built by government funds/budget. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kokleong toh (talk • contribs) 13:59, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Changes made by Hendrick 99 on March 21 2015

I agree with the need to reduce the size of the article by making the History and Economics sections into new articles, but I do not agree with making the Hard Infrastructure and Soft Infrastructure section into new articles, because these are the core, the most important part of the Infrastructure article. AlexPlante (talk) 11:01, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Moved text from corresponding articles

I have moved text from the respective "main articles" since the tags haven't seems to have done anything for getting people to edit. Please do not simply revert, provide an explanation and even better, start a discussion. Cheers, Drcrazy102 (talk) 02:02, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Infrastructure planning

This red topic seems important. Could somebody stub it? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 17:47, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

I have redirected it to Infrastructure_and_economics#Planning_and_management_of_infrastructure as this section already covers the topic. Cheers, Drcrazy102 (talk) 02:05, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

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Possible Changes

Hello wikipedians for a class I have to edit articles and I was thinking of working on this article, here are some proposed citations that I would use and also an outline of what information I'd like to add.

Qi, Wei, Yong Liang, and Zuo-Jun Max Shen. "Joint planning of energy storage and transmission for wind energy generation." Operations Research Nov.-Dec. 2015: 1280+. Academic OneFile. Web. 23 Feb. 2016.

Tarr, Joel A. "Confronting infrastructure." The Wilson Quarterly 17.2 (1993): 152+. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 23 Feb. 2016.

Ben-Shahar, Omri, and Kyle Logue. "The unintended effects of government-subsidized weather insurance: these programs are a boon to the wealthy and encourage development in disaster-prone areas." Regulation 38.3 (2015): 24+. Academic OneFile. Web. 23 Feb. 2016.

For this article I want to add information on what infrastructural systems are like in different parts of the world on not just America. I also want to add cases of major infrastructural failure; I feel this may not be a good choice, especially for the Wikipedia space. I also wanted to add information on different types of infrastructure, it would focuses on major governmental projects, everyday architectural infrastructure, as well as energy infrastructure, which is how energy and resources are shared within metropolitan and towns all over the world. I am also on the hunt for information on maintenance and the average life span of modern day infrastructures. I also want to add info about old infrastructure, like the coliseums and Greek buildings like the pantheon and Parthenon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Austindmorales (talk • contribs) 04:49, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Dr. Calitz's comment on this article

Dr. Calitz has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:


In Africa, in order to reach the seven percent annual growth calculated to be required to meet the MDGs by 2015 would require infrastructure investments of about fifteen percent of GDP, or around US$93 billion a year.[22] In fragile states, over thirty-seven percent of GDP would be required.[22] Replace with the following [changes in brackets for ease of detection]: In Africa, in order to reach the seven percent annual growth calculated to be required to meet the MDGs by 2015 [would have required] infrastructure investments of about fifteen percent of GDP, or around US$93 billion a year.[22] In fragile states, over thirty-seven percent of GDP [would have been required].[22]


We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

We believe Dr. Calitz has expertise on the topic of this article, since he has published relevant scholarly research:


  • Reference : Estian Calitz & Johan Fourie, 2007. "Infrastructure in South Africa: Who is to finance and who is to pay?," Working Papers 15/2007, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 17:24, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Removed {{Merge from}} Infrastructure and economics

Removed with prejudice 2016-08-23 by Fabartus

{{Merge from|Infrastructure and economics|section=y|date=March 2015}}
... since THERE IS NO talk page section supporting this proposal, and the linked main article page (Infrastructure and economics (edit talk links history)) has no matching {{mergeto}} template.
  • Please read the directions and link an initialized section if you are going to use a merge template. // FrankB 02:03, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Dr. Florio's comment on this article

Dr. Florio has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:


This article is neither a description of what infrastructures are in the current terminology is economics, management or engineering, nor a review of the related issues in the perspectives of the different disciplines.

Two very recent books may be considered, particularly the introductory chapters : The Economics of Infrastructure Provisioning: The Changing Role of the State (CESifo Seminar Series) Hardcover – 19 Jan 2016 MIT Press, edited by Arnold Picot , Massimo Florio, Nico Grove , Johann Kranz. Infrastructure Finance in Europe: Insights into the History of Water, Transport, and Telecommunications Hardcover – 14 Jan 2016, Oxford University Press

edited by Youssef Cassis , Giuseppe De Luca , Massimo Florio


We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

We believe Dr. Florio has expertise on the topic of this article, since he has published relevant scholarly research:


  • Reference : Chiara DEL BO & Massimo FLORIO, 2008. "Infrastructure and growth in the European Union: an empirical analysis at the regional level in a spatial framework," Departmental Working Papers 2008-37, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Universita degli Studi di Milano.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 15:25, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

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