These projects are invariably speculative, arriving through a complex relationship between public and private interests and often regarded as a catalyst for development rather than an end in themselves.

 

Unlike a piece of architecture or urbanism, infrastructure holds out the possibility of perfection: a predominately linear system that strives towards the ideal; a dispassionate piece of problem-solving.However, all infrastructure projects become localized over time, become contaminated by situation, and by introduction into an actual and political topography.

 

Cities produce concentrations of infrastructure as one of the criteria of urbanity. Each city develops these systems in very different ways.As a dispersed and open city, London has needed to be particularly receptive to big infrastructure projects, so that its citizens and visitors can get around, wash, be provisioned, discard things, etc.