ABSTRACT
During the period between about 1850 and 1960 there was a general movement, particularly in Western cities, from the piecemeal and fragmented provision of networked infrastructures to an emphasis on centralised and standardised systems. This occurred through a major expansion in both public and private sector investment in infrastructure networks (Mattelart, 1996; Hughes, 1983). The growth of regulated network monopolies supported the rapid diffusion of water and sewerage systems throughout cities and systems of cities, and the improvement of transport networks to improve circulation. Initially, private sector accomplishments focused on the expansion of the telegraph network, the development of early gas distribution systems (from the early 1820s onwards), the rapid expansion of the telephone and electricity networks (from the 1880s onwards) and the deployment of electric streetcars (trams), subways and elevated lines. At the same, Western powers imposed adapted versions of the ideal of the standardised infrastructure network across Africa, Latin America, Asia and Australasia, but only for the urban spaces of the colonisers and their associated socioeconomic elites (a story we shall return to in the final part of this chapter).
