Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface
- Introduction: When Infrastructures Fail Stephen Graham
- Managing the Risk of Cascading Failure in Complex Urban Infrastructures Richard G. Little
- Disoriented City: Infrastructure, Social Order and the Police Response to Hurricane Katrina Benjamin Sims
- Power Loss: The Electricity Network Collapse of August 2003 in North
- Containing Insecurity: Logistic Space, US Port Cities, and the ‘War on Terror’ Deborah Cowan
- Clogged Cities: Sclerotic Infrastructure Simon Marvin and Will Medd
- Securitizing Networked Flows: Infectious Diseases and Airports Harris Ali and Roger Keil
- Disruption by Design: Infrastructure Disruption and Political Violence Stephen Graham
- Infrastructure, Interruption and Inequality: Urban Life in the Global South Colin McFarlane
Biography
Stephen Graham is Professor of Human Geography at Durham University in the UK. He has a background in urbanism, planning and the sociology of technology. His research addresses the complex intersections between urban places, mobilities, technology, war, surveillance and geopolitics. He is Academic Director of the International Boundaries Research Unit (IBRU) and Associate Director of the Centre for the Study of Cities and Regions (CSCR), both at Durham. His books include Telecommunications and the City, Splintering Urbanism (both with Simon Marvin), the Cybercities Reader, and Cities, War and Terrorism. His latest book, Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism, will be published by Verso in Summer 2009.
"In this provocative, compelling book, Graham and an international team of collaborators add essential theoretical insights and empirical knowledge to the rapidly developing field of infrastructure studies. This is essential reading for anyone interested in the urbanized dimensions of infrastructure and in the infrastructural dimensions of urbanization."—Neil Brenner, Sociology and Metropolitan Studies, New York University
"With a razor-sharp blade, this remarkable book cuts through the tangled skein of infrastructure that knots the city – and the planet – together. By looking at these networks in failure mode, Stephen Graham and his collaborators demonstrate with scary precision the ways in which such "invisible" webs not simply service but regulate - and too often destroy - the lives that depend on them."—Michael Sorkin, Architecture and Urban Design, City College of New York
"Seeing cities through the lens of infrastructure opens up a world of processes, breakdowns, and inertias. Each of the chapters brings to light unexpected features of how infrastructures fit into city life, how malfunction makes them more visible in certain cities and a state of nature in slums, how political dynamics are unleashed by infrastructures . This is an exciting contribution to the study of cities." –Saskia Sassen, author of Deciphering the Global
"This very interesting book made the reviewer think about specific actions professionals should take, how they should try to convince decision makers about the need to renovate such infrastructure, and to what extent real-life challenges and duties should be taken into account when educating professionals." -- Public Works Management & Policy, August 2010
