Next Generation Infrastructure

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

   PDF

2. Introduction: Bold Endeavors Needed

   • Hillary Brown

   Pages 1-15

3. Toward Infrastructural Ecologies: Interconnected, Multipurpose, and Synergistic Systems

   • Hillary Brown

   Pages 17-39

4. Greening Heat and Power: An Integrated Approach to Decarbonizing Energy

   • Hillary Brown

   Pages 41-68

5. Advancing Soft-Path Water Infrastructure: Combined Constructed and Natural Systems

   • Hillary Brown

   Pages 69-96

6. Destigmatizing Infrastructure: Design of Community-Friendly Facilities

   • Hillary Brown

   Pages 97-125

7. Creating Resilient Coastlines and Waterways: Hard and Soft Constructions

   • Hillary Brown

   Pages 127-148

8. Combating Water Stress and Scarcity: Augmented Sources and Improved Storage

   • Hillary Brown

   Pages 149-169

9. Ways Forward: Think Systematically, Experiment Locally

   • Hillary Brown

   Pages 171-197

10. Back Matter

    Pages 199-241

    PDF

The 2007 bridge collapse in Minneapolis-St. Paul quickly became symbolic of the debilitated interstate highway system—and of what many critics see as America’s disinvestment in its infrastructure. The extreme vulnerability of single-purpose, aging infrastructure was highlighted once again when Hurricane Sandy churned its way across the northeast United States. Inundating New York City’s vital arteries, floodwaters overwhelmed tunnels and sewers; closed bridges; shut down mass transit; curtailed gas supplies; and destroyed streets, buildings, and whole neighborhoods.

Next Generation Infrastructure takes a critical but ultimately hopeful look at how our infrastructure networks can be made more efficient, less environmentally damaging, and more resilient. Brown argues that, if we’re to chart a course for global sustainability, we must begin to design, regulate, and finance infrastructure that decouples carbon-intensive and ecologically harmful technologies from critical infrastructure systems, namely the essential systems for contemporary society: water, wastewater, power, solid waste, transportation, and communication. The book highlights hopeful examples from around the world, ranging from the Mount Poso cogeneration plant in California to urban rainwater harvesting in Seoul, South Korea, to the multi-purpose Marina Barrage project in Singapore.

Brown encourages us to envision infrastructure within a larger economic, environmental, and social context, and to share resources across systems, reducing costs and extending benefits. This is a must read for professionals and students interested in a more resilient urban future including urban designers, architects, urban planners, urban policymakers, landscape architects, and engineers.

• Climate change
• Global sustainability
• Infrastructure
• Resilience
• Urbanism
• water quality and water pollution
• urban geography and urbanism
• urban geography and urbanism

• Cuny Institute for Urban Systems, City College of New York, New York, USA

  Hillary Brown

Hillary Brown, FAIA, is Principal of the firm New Civic Works and Professor at the Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York. Previously, as a New York City Assistant Commissioner, Brown was Founding Director of NYC’s Office of Sustainable Design. Brown led publication of the nationally recognized City of New York High Performance Building Guidelines and High Performance Infrastructure Guidelines. She currently serves on the National Research Council of the National Academies’ Board on Infrastructure and the Constructed Environment. Brown has served on both the national and New York Chapter Board of Directors for the U.S. Green Building Council and is a Fellow of the Post-Carbon Institute. 

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