Course Description
Aside from social, environmental, political, and economic systems that make up a city, there is a complex “mechanical” system that allows it to function and provide necessary services to residents. Whether this “infrastructure” is independent of other units of infrastructure or completely interdependent, they affect growth and form of urban areas.
Athena Title
CITY INFRASTRUCTURE
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall, spring and summer
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
Students will develop an understanding of the “infrastructure” systems that provide services, convenience and safety to a city’s residents. •Introduction to the many public and private elements that make up a city’s infrastructure. •Understanding of the requirements of each element when planning that element’s system as a building block of a comprehensive city plan. •Understanding of the relationships and interdependencies of infrastructural elements to each other and of their effects on urban development and form. •Understanding of how the underlying natural setting of a city affects infrastructure planning and, conversely, how an element of infrastructure can affect the environment. •Preliminary understanding of how various elements of infrastructure are financed, implemented, and maintained. •Exposure to infrastructural systems that tend to be in the public realm, privately provided, or both. •A basic understanding (almost a broad-based survey level) of the full breadth of a complex series of urban systems with greater focus on fundamental elements such as water, sewer, transportation and public safety. Skills: •fundamental system knowledge and the ability to investigate more completely later •ability to relate the effect of infrastructure on land use patterns •ability to strategically use infrastructure planning to stimulate desired urban growth •ability to relate to and supervise infrastructure design •critical thinking on Urban Development Values •Through the introduction of the fundamentals of Urban Infrastructure, students will develop an understanding of and an ability to design, supervise and participate in the creation of the underlying systems that support urban living.
Topical Outline
Work for the class will include readings, class participation, class assignments, research papers and presentations. (Each topic area will include knowledge of the particular infrastructural unit, its implementation and finance, its relationship to the environment and urban development and other relationships and strategies affecting planning.) A. Generally Public Infrastructural Systems 1. Water (supply, treatment, distribution, best practices) 2. Sewer (collection, treatment, re-use cycles, best practices) 3. Transportation • Roads and highways (autos, trucks, buses) • Rail (freight and transit) • Waterways (freight & transit) • Air (freight & transit) • Pedestrian, bicycle, alternative transportation • Transportation mixes and best practices 4. Health and Public Safety • Police, Fire • Local – Federal Safety • Medical Provision Systems (Public & Private) 5. Education • Preschool – High School • Specialized • Private • Higher Education Systems • Libraries & Other 6. Public Assistance • Housing • Services & Finance • Other 7. Open Space and Recreation 8. Other B. Generally Privately Provided 1. Communications and Technology 2. Energy • Electrical • Oil and gas • Other 3. Goods & Services (retail, commercial, financial) 4. Entertainment, Quality of Life Elements 5. Other C. A look at the collective “whole” of infrastructure