The Evolution of the Urban Infrastructure in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

This chapter* discusses the origins and development of the urban capital infrastructure in the United States since 1790. Urban infrastructure is defined as the “sinews” of the city: its road, bridge, and transit networks; its water and sewer lines and waste disposal facilities; its power systems; its public buildings; and its parks and recreation areas.1 In developing an analysis, the chapter draws on history in three ways: to furnish perspectives on the evolution of the urban infrastructure over time; to point to critical stages, paradigm shifts, and key turning points in history; and to provide analogies between the contemporary so-called crisis of the infrastructure and similar events in the past (see Stearns and Tarr, 1982). The chapter is structured around questions concerning the demand for public works; the factors affecting their supply; the character of the provider (public, public-private, or private); and the relationship of urban infrastructure to financial, political, technological, spatial, public health, social, and demographic considerations.

*Chapter 1, Perspectives on Urban Infrastructure, edited by Royce Hanson, National Academy Press, 1984