Introduction

Abstract

This first chapter offers a historical review of the development of infrastructures as a prologue to the key themes that will be explored in the rest of the book. This historical review focuses, firstly, on the infrastructural ideal of the early industrialized world toward building integrated cities, and, secondly, on the “splintering” of this infrastructural ideal by disintegrating previously public-held monopolies to private sector involvement. These historical processes of infrastructural development are then further unpacked by approaching them through the problem of collective action. The chapter concludes by summarizing the key learning points from the history on infrastructure development.