Infrastructures and Transformation: Between Path Dependency and Opening-Up for Experimental Change

Abstract

Infrastructure development faces multiple challenges in the present. These are generated by digitalization, ecological orientation, transformation, and the emergence of a multipolar de-colonial world order. Under these conditions, infrastructure development faces the problem that, although designed for stability and continuity, it requires a new flexibility. To address these issues more precisely, this article first proposes a heuristic for studying infrastructures in times of transformation and tests it with two examples. In it, it is shown that the qualification of future infrastructure development lies in the characteristics of scalability, inclusivity, and updateability.