Two centuries after the birth of modern infrastructural systems, we recognize that they are a key component of the way that we take care of each other, and we can reject the idea that some lives and ways of life are more worthy than others. Instead of utilitarianism, then, we can draw on a different operative moral framework: the ethics of care. Ra

The city’s failure was most apparent, and the problems largest, in those categories of municipal responsibility in which the betterment of its people’s lives required the construction of public works on a scale commensurate with the city’s size.

In the automobile era, the risk taking is reversed. For all but the most local of transportation improvements, governments front the investment capital and take the risk. Governments gamble that the growth will happen and that, if it does, it will hold its value over time – it will generate enough wealth long term – so as to enable the system to be