It’s too early to know for certain what the causes were of the two collapses, but “structural problems” were suspected at the Spanish boardwalk, and “signs of problems” had been observed on the Italian bridge. Those factors invoke concerns about general infrastructural decline caused by deferred maintenance (usually from lack of funding). That’s a familiar story everywhere. In the early-20th century, many structures were overengineered to hold massive loads. But as civil engineering matured, and as demand for structures increased, the profession designed structures to be safe, but also quick to erect economically. Eventually, those compromises would come home to roost. In 2007, a highway bridge in Minneapolis collapsed, killing or injuring hundreds. But even a decade later, the nation’s “aging infrastructure” remained, mostly having become a political talking point rather than a program for renewal. [...]
It’s not just bridges and roads breaking. Mark Zuckerberg has claimed that Facebook is a kind of social infrastructure, but it feels broken now, too. This week, at the Defcon computer-security conference, hackers demonstrated how to gain back-door access to voting machines used in 18 states. There’s evidence that Russia has hacked the U.S. power grid, along with nuclear and commercial infrastructure, too. The prevalence of badly secured internet-connected data, from emails to DNA samples to credit reports, has made all information vulnerable. Last year, 143 million Americans’ personal information, including Social Security numbers, were lifted from the credit agency Equifax’s servers. [...]
The same feelings of uncertainty and vulnerability that now accompany employment, education, health care, and so many other aspects of contemporary life have seeped into the foundational structures in which that life operates. That condition is not necessarily an undesirable one either, for those who might benefit from precariousness as a means of social control. It’s funny to laugh about the ongoing, unrealized promise of President Donald Trump’s “infrastructure week,” even while an estimated $123 billion backlog mounts for U.S. bridge repairs alone. But withholding solutions to infrastructural precariousness produces confusion and fear, which agitate bitterness, blame, and, sometimes, zealotry. In the case of the Miami pedestrian bridge, some focused scorn on an all-woman engineering team employed by the Cuban-American–owned contractor responsible for construction. In Flint, Michigan, a public official blamed black people who “don’t pay their bills” for the city’s ongoing water crisis.
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