Rethinking Urban Infrastructure Cost Management in Developing Countries
Publication: Journal of Urban Planning and Development
Volume 142, Issue 1
Abstract
Although infrastructure is the backbone of every human settlement, development and accessibility of infrastructure in most developing countries are very low and poor as a result of fiscal challenges. This calls for rethinking infrastructure provision approaches to assuage the costs, particularly linear infrastructure, so as to ensure some match between infrastructure demand and supply in developing countries, given the fiscal challenges. This study seeks to relate one urban feature—street pattern—to linear infrastructure cost by modeling the capital costs of a water distribution system, electricity distribution system, and road network to four different residential neighborhood patterns with the same tract area of each. The study identifies the tributary pattern as being the most economical pattern in terms of linear infrastructure costs in comparison with the radial, grid, and hybrid patterns. Although the tributary pattern has the disadvantage of inaccessibility, it could be alleviated by fitting it with a carefully designed network of footpaths, which fits into most developing countries’ means of transportation in residential areas (i.e., walking).
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Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Prof. Dr.-Ing Stefan Siedentop and Prof. Dr. Frank C. Englmann, both at the University of Stuttgart, Germany, for their useful comments on this study.
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Information & Authors
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Published In
Journal of Urban Planning and Development
Volume 142 • Issue 1 • March 2016
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 31, 2013
Accepted: Nov 11, 2014
Published online: Dec 12, 2014
Discussion open until: May 12, 2015
Published in print: Mar 1, 2016
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