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Abstract Recent major investments in infrastructure in the United States and globally present a crucial opportunity to embed equity within the heart of resilient infrastructure decision-making. Yet there is a notable absence of frameworks within the engineering and scientific fields for integrating equity into planning, design, and maintenance of infrastructure. Additionally, whole-of-government approaches to infrastructure, including the Justice40 Initiative, mimic elements of process management that support exploitative rather than exploratory innovation. These and other policies risk creating innovation traps that limit analytical and engineering advances necessary to prioritize equity in decision-making, identification and disruption of mechanisms that cause or contribute to inequities, and remediation of historic harms. Here, we propose a three-tiered framework toward equitable and resilient infrastructure through restorative justice, incremental policy innovation, and exploratory research innovation. This framework aims to ensure equitable access and benefits of infrastructure, minimize risk disparities, and embrace restorative justice to repair historical and systemic inequities. We outline incremental policy innovation and exploratory research action items to address and mitigate risk disparities, emphasizing the need for community-engaged research and the development of equity metrics. Among other action items, we recommend a certification system—referred to as Social, Environmental, and Economic Development (SEED)—to train infrastructure engineers and planners and ensure attentiveness to gaps that exist within and dynamically interact across each tier of the proposed framework. Through the framework and proposed actions, we advocate for a transformative vision for equitable infrastructure that emphasizes the interconnectedness of social, environmental, and technical dimensions in infrastructure planning, design, and maintenance.
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Can infrastructure help ‘left behind’ places ‘catch up?’ Theorizing the role of built infrastructure in regional development
Abstract The application of infrastructure as a regional development tool in resource peripheries has received little direct inquiry in both policy and scholarly debates. This article synthesizes theoretical and empirical directions across economic geography, regional studies and critical infrastructure studies to form a research agenda for investigating the role of built infrastructure in the development of ‘left behind’ peripheral regions in the USA. We argue that infrastructural systems’ material, social, fiscal and political dimensions potentially deepen rather than mitigate structural ‘left behind-ness’. Future research and policy design must account for such dynamics if infrastructure interventions are to prove generative for regional development.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1757351
- PAR ID:
- 10468888
- Publisher / Repository:
- Oxford University Press
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society
- Volume:
- 17
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 1752-1378
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 393-406
- Size(s):
- p. 393-406
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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