The potential of infrastructure ‘as a solution’ is currently at the forefront of American political consciousness. Historic levels of investment in infrastructure proffer seismic material, economic, and symbolic transformations at a near-continental scale. However, the present policy context for infrastructure planning in the US is confounded by a mosaic of decision-making authorities that hamper the development of cohesive approaches to sustainable and equitable development. This situation underscores the need to identify how infrastructural futures are assembled and scaled as simultaneously continuous and emergent, old and new, and marked by the diverse capacities of various stakeholders. This paper makes a case for ‘seeing like a region’ when examining transformative approaches to infrastructural change, as infrastructure systems regularly transcend the boundaries of urban space and hence become enmeshed in the goals of broader constituencies and interests. Through a case study of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, we question how infrastructural futures are understood and materialised by the region’s central planning stakeholders. Our analysis pays particular attention to the challenges faced by regional planning organisations when navigating the spatial–temporal frames of incremental and radical change. As the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission operates with limited staff capacity, high regulatory burdens, and short time horizons for budgeting processes, incremental changes to infrastructure often are the best hope for solving regional challenges of structural inequality and uneven access to resources. This demonstrates how the solutions proffered by infrastructural development are confounded by the dynamics that come into focus when evaluated from the regional scale. Yet we also identify possibilities for regional approaches that foster equitable urban futures within the spatial envelopes created by infrastructural systems and imaginaries that transition from reactive ‘infrastructural solutions’ to a proactive materialisation of ‘infrastructures as solutions’.

中文翻译：

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连接“基础设施解决方案”和“基础设施作为解决方案”：区域承诺和城市实用主义


基础设施“作为解决方案”的潜力目前处于美国政治意识的前沿。历史性的基础设施投资水平带来了近乎大陆规模的重大物质、经济和象征性变革。然而，目前美国基础设施规划的政策环境因决策机构的混乱而混乱，阻碍了可持续和公平发展的统一方法的制定。这种情况强调需要确定基础设施的未来如何组合和扩展，既连续又新兴，既旧又新，并以不同利益相关者的不同能力为标志。本文在研究基础设施变革的变革方法时提出了“以区域的视角看待”的案例，因为基础设施系统经常超越城市空间的边界，从而陷入更广泛的选民和利益的目标中。通过对宾夕法尼亚州西南部委员会的案例研究，我们质疑该地区的中央规划利益相关者如何理解和实现基础设施的未来。我们的分析特别关注区域规划组织在应对渐进和彻底变革的时空框架时所面临的挑战。由于宾夕法尼亚州西南部委员会的工作人员能力有限、监管负担重、预算流程时间短，对基础设施的渐进式变革往往是解决结构性不平等和资源获取不均等区域挑战的最佳希望。 这表明基础设施发展提供的解决方案如何与从区域规模进行评估时所关注的动态相混淆。然而，我们还确定了区域方法的可能性，这些方法在基础设施系统和想象所创造的空间范围内促进公平的城市未来，从被动的“基础设施解决方案”过渡到“基础设施作为解决方案”的主动实现。