A Reference Model

This chapter refers to a central part of the book. It is the clarification of the reference model, that is to say the transition from public work to urban infrastructure. This transformation brings with it other important transformations, such as: the impetuous growth of globalization and global cities; the transformation of the State that intervened until a few decades ago exclusively on public works; the complex birth of new forms of assembly of infrastructures with new formulas management including public and private partnerships and long term contracts (LTC); the transformation of larger cities into consolidated global cities that need to be renewed through the evolution of the urban infrastructure; global cities that enormously feed the needs of urban infrastructures. There are also enormous delays and clashes between the old model and the new one. In the macro system nothing is sequential and automatic, two models coexist, often creating asymmetries in the assembly and management of urban infrastructures. Private (investment) capital massively enters the replacement with public (investment) capital. There is also a convergence with the development of technology (ICT) which transforms the very idea of infrastructure.