Modern infrastructure has the ability to make our lives better. Instant access to power and clean water. The ability to communicate with friends and family around the world. The freedom to quickly get where we want when we want. But today’s infrastructure is still very flawed. Not everyone has access to that infrastructure, which means not everyone has the agency and abilities that infrastructure can create. Our infrastructure is also directly contributing to the climate crisis. And our infrastructure was built with the assumption that the natural world upon which it relies will stay the same, but we know now that the natural world is changing rapidly as a result of a warming planet. So what can be done to create a more sustainable, resilient, and just infrastructure?

This week, we speak with Professor Deb Chachra about her new book “How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems that Shape Our World”. Professor Chachra is a Professor of Engineering at Olin College of Engineering and has traveled the work admiring and examining the infrastructure that so many take for granted but which enables the lives of billions of people around the world. This conversation is a deep dive into infrastructure and the world it has created and what the world could look like if we start building better infrastructure now.

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Why Infrastructure is Critical to a Sustainable and Just Society (w/ Deb Chachra)