How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World

by Deb Chachra

Overview

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2023 BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

"Revelatory, superbly written, and pulsing with wisdom and humanity, How Infrastructure Works is a masterpiece.” —Ed Yong, author of An Immense World

A new way of seeing the essential systems hidden inside our walls, under our streets, and all around us

Infrastructure is a marvel, meeting our basic needs and enabling lives of astounding ease and productivity that would have been unimaginable just a century ago. It is the physical manifestation of our social contract—of our ability to work collectively for the public good—and it consists of the most complex and vast technological systems ever created by humans.

A soaring bridge is an obvious infrastructural feat, but so are the mostly hidden reservoirs, transformers, sewers, cables, and pipes that deliver water, energy, and information to wherever we need it. When these systems work well, they hide in plain sight. Engineer and materials scientist Deb Chachra takes readers on a fascinating tour of these essential utilities, revealing how they work, what it takes to keep them running, just how much we rely on them—but also whom they work well for, and who pays the costs.

Across the U.S. and elsewhere, these systems are suffering from systemic neglect and the effects of climate change, becoming unavoidably visible when they break down. Communities that are already marginalized often bear the brunt of these failures. But Chachra maps out a path for transforming and rebuilding our shared infrastructure to be not just functional but also equitable, resilient, and sustainable. The cost of not being able to rely on these systems is unthinkably high. We need to learn how to see them—and fix them, together—before it’s too late.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593086599
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/17/2023
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	56,667
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Deb Chachra is a professor at Olin College of Engineering with a technical background in engineering physics and materials science. She writes the newsletter Metafoundry and creates and communicates widely at the intersection of technology and society, including pieces for The Atlantic, The Guardian, the journal Nature, and the comic book Bitch Planet. Her research and ideas have been recognized and supported by awards from the Sloan Foundation, the National Science Foundation, Autodesk, and others. Chachra lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Editorial Reviews

★ 08/21/2023

Materials scientist Chachra reminds readers of the ubiquity, endurance, and necessity of infrastructural networks while enthusiastically arguing for their public funding in her insightful debut. Weaving together travelogue, expert knowledge, and personal remembrances of her childhood in Canada and adulthood in various cities including Boston and London, Chachra describes the systems that provide people with water, electricity, natural gas, telecommunications, mobility, and sewage disposal. She explains that infrastructural networks not only “meet our basic biological needs,” but also “increase our abilities and agency through access to energy, and... allow us to develop and foster social relationships with each other through communication and mobility.” However, infrastructure can be used by the powerful to enhance their positions and exacerbate inequalities. Consequently, Chachra argues for infrastructure to be publicly and democratically controlled. She also emphasizes that new infrastructure must be designed with the adaptability and efficiency needed to withstand climate change. Examples of structures she admires include the Dinorwig Power Station in Wales, which draws power from an artificial waterfall during the day and at night utilizes unused energy to pump the water up again; and New York City’s network of upstate reservoirs and aqueducts, which, making use of the natural incline of the landscape, are 97% powered by gravity. Written in a distinctive style that is both conversational and erudite, this is an accessible and enjoyable account. Readers will be engrossed. (Oct.)Correction: An earlier version of this review misquoted the book.

Publishers Weekly

Praise for How Infrastructure Works:

“Essential. . . . a passionate argument for the political necessity of functioning infrastructure.” —Annalee Newitz, The Washington Post

"This book articulates something of a philosophy of infrastructure: both a convincing call for us to think harder about these systems and a road map for how we might do so productively. . . . Chachra’s vision is positive, even galvanizing." —The Atlantic

“Insightful. . . . Written in a distinctive style that is both conversational and erudite, this is an accessible and enjoyable account. Readers will be engrossed.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Superbly rendered. . . . A rare book on engineering and its economics that will satisfy general readers.” —Kirkus (starred review)

“As the world deals with climate instability, Chachra offers a vision of inclusive design that reimagines what communities can become. Writing with enthusiasm and clarity, Chachra explains complex systems and human dynamics in this approachable, informative study of the world around us.” —Booklist

“The urgent problems of the modern era have instilled in so many of us a deep craving to more clearly see the systems that define our lives, to better understand when and why they fail, and to regain agency over a world that can seem too complex to understand much less affect. Fortunately, Deb Chachra has written exactly the book we needed. Revelatory, superbly written, and pulsing with wisdom and humanity, How Infrastructure Works is a masterpiece.” —Ed Yong, author of An Immense World and I Contain Multitudes

“A wonderful, wide-ranging narrative addressing the technical, social, personal, historical, and political aspects of the often-disregarded, invisible systems that support us. Forged of a huge heart and vast expertise, it shines with fierce humanity.” —Helen Macdonald, author of Vesper Flights and H Is for Hawk
 
“How Infrastructure Works gives you x-ray vision into our built environment. It's also a ton of fun to read; Chachra is a gifted stylist and a first-rate intellectual guide.” —Clive Thompson, author of Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World

“Deb Chachra provides a helpful and hopeful guide to understanding the hidden systems that keep our everyday lives going. You won’t see the world the same after reading this book!” —Austin Kleon, author of Steal Like an Artist

“Deb Chachra is the perfect guide not just to how infrastructure works but also how it feels. This book is just like the power plants it describes: a precise machine, a fountain of energy.” —Robin Sloan, author of Sourdough and Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore

“A hopeful, lyrical—even beautiful—hymn to the systems of mutual aid we embed in our material world, from sewers to roads to the power grid.” —Cory Doctorow

"An extraordinary book that shows just how much the vast engineering structures that we rely on every day are shaped by political and social forces. It’s a passionate plea for people to understand that engineering is deeply human." —Mark Miodownik, author of Stuff Matters

From the Publisher

★ 2023-07-26
A welcome new entry in the how-stuff-works genre.

Everyone knows that roads and bridges are pieces of infrastructure, but so are light switches, sewers, telephone poles, and mailboxes; this imaginative book tells us how they work and what they mean. Writing about her childhood, Chachra, a professor at Olin College of Engineering, chronicles how her middle-class family in urban India received running water for one hour, twice per day, which they collected in buckets for bathing and flushing toilets and boiled for drinking. Electrical brownouts were routine. The author delivers a fine education on the technology that provides a seamless life for the lucky “global 10 percent.” All infrastructure requires energy. The automobile, which speeds us from place to place in a metal shell, requires enormous energy to manufacture and transport to the local dealership, but flipping a light switch makes us no less a human-machine hybrid. Infrastructure is “vast and collective,” but it makes us free. Chachra criticizes the idea of “off the grid,” a life that would be dominated by maintaining personal systems to deal with water, electricity, heat, cleaning, and producing and cooking food. The author devotes the second half of this superbly rendered book to the ongoing problems of her subject. A company can profit by building a pipeline or bridge; legislators boast of promoting it; the media celebrate its opening. Thereafter, like all infrastructure, it requires ongoing maintenance, which is boring and expensive and—all experts agree—wildly inadequate. Due to aging pipe systems, “15% of all clean drinking water in the U.S. is lost to leaks.” Every decade or so, when a bridge collapses, we mourn the victims, but little changes. Turning to “plan for abundant energy and finite materials,” Chachra is more optimistic than most, noting that “we are not doomed to a dystopian future of failing systems.”

A rare book on engineering and its economics that will satisfy general readers.

Kirkus Reviews