Infrastructural Optimism

1) The appeal of the content is broadly interdisciplinary and informative to a range of readers, from practitioners and

real project stakeholders to academics, students, and scholars.

2) The case sites vary in scale, scope and geography, from booming American cities to those struggling with

disinvestment. The cases are also typological, allowing them to be broadly applicable to other cities and sites.

3) The infrastructural categories also vary in type including waterways, roads, rail, transit, energy, housing, health

and food. Every city is facing infrastructural crises of some kind and can see their own challenges reflected in the

content of the text.

4) The methodologies include research and analysis related to the cases directly, but also projective, speculative

thinking that explores the role of both innovation and design in next generation infrastructure. Typically books are

either focused on design speculation or on the analysis of existing cases, but not both. Cities are looking for creative

solutions, and this text provides bridges between real challenges and innovative thinking.