human infrastructure

jo guldi, harvard society of fellows / brown university

the new infrastructure has new

agents: state,

market, technology

actors in the political economy of sustainable

infrastructure• national environmental regulation - US 1972 Clean Water Act; CERCLA 1980

• tax status -- ecotaxation of fuel in UK and Germany since 1980s; Real Estate Investment Trusts petitioning the government to protect solar farms

• Leed certification (1993)

• international protection -- Indian solar manufacturers petitioning the US to open trade restrictions (2012)

• Envision (tm) certification for infrastructure (2012)

• packaging sustainable infrastructure as a financial commodity (Andre Schneider, Geneva) (2012)

• national infrastructure banking - Obama infrastructure act (2013)

• international infrastructure banking - US Africa Clean Energy and Finance Development Centre, Johannesburg (2013)

fruits of sustainable infrastructure

The Other Revolution: Alternate Actors in

Sustainable Infrastructure•urbanization and slum development

across the global south, 1950-1972

•The World Bank and “appropriate technology” or “sustainable infrastructure” for the urban poor, a.k.a self-made roads, c 1965

•The invention of the crowd-sourced map, c. 1972

participatory mapping, 1972-2006

Fruits of participatory mapping

crowd-sourced

mapping, 2006-2026

Ordering the new agents of

infrastructure -- how?

building human infrastructure

• creating the conditions of full participation: peer-to-peer sharing across natonal boundaries using the least effective technology

• fully funding a mass training program for crowdsourced map making, local infrastructure delivery

• sharing data on local property law in land and water

• showing the economy back to itself: visualize full employment, not merely economic growth