Cities and Their Vital Systems asks basic questions about the longevity, utility, and nature of urban infrastructures; analyzes how they grow, interact, and change; and asks how, when, and at what cost they should be replaced. Among the topics discussed are problems arising from increasing air travel and airport congestion; the adequacy of water supplies and waste treatment; the impact of new technologies on construction; urban real estate values; and the field of "telematics," the combination of computers and telecommunications that makes money machines and national newspapers possible.
- Cover
- Front Matter
- 1 Cities and Infrastructure: Synthesis and Perspectives
- 2 The Dynamic Characterization of Cities
- 3 How Cities Grew in the Western World: A Systems Approach
- 4 Urban Systems and Historical Path Dependence
- 5 An Economic Model of Urban Growth
- 6 Growth of U.S. Cities and Recent Trends in Urban Real Estate Values
- 7 Infrastructures for Movement: Past and Future
- 8 Dynamics and Replacement of U.S. Transport Infrastructures
- 9 Air Traffic Congestion: Problems and Prospects
- 10 Combining Communications and Computing: Telematics Infrastructures
- 11 Reflections on the Telecommunications Infrastructure
- 12 Water Supply and Distribution: The Next 50 Years
- 13 The Urban Wastewater Infrastructure
- 14 New Construction Technologies for Rebuilding the Nation's Infrastructure
- 15 Longevity of Infrastructure
- Contributors
- Index