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The word Infra- means below and many of these constructions are underground, for example, tunnels, water and gas systems, and railways. Infrastructure is behind the scenes, which is why people don’t necessarily think about it. It goes over the population’s heads, it works as a background, unnoticed, and “below the radar." There are two general types of ways to view infrastructure, hard or soft. Hard infrastructure refers to the physical networks necessary for the functioning of a modern industry. This includes roads, bridges, railways, etc. Soft infrastructure refers to all the institutions that maintain the economic, health, social, and cultural standards of a country. This includes educational programs, parks and recreational facilities, law enforcement agencies, and emergency services.

Ferry Building at Night

Politician’s use the word infrastructure to describe how a nation can help transport goods (this includes electricity, water supply, energy, and technology) from place to place in an orderly fashion. This can happen through the work of roadways, railways, bridges, pipelines, etc. Former president Barack Obama said in a memorandum that, “To maintain our nations competitive edge, we must ensure that the United States has fast, reliable ways to move people, goods, energy, and information. Investing in the nation’s infrastructure brings both immediate and long-term economic benefits— benefits that can accrue not only where the infrastructure is located, but also the communities all across the country." This shows the way infrastructure is viewed by the federal government.

Engineers use the word infrastructure when talking about a structure’s overall foundation and how to improve the works of them all around to help better the population. Engineers everywhere are fixing roads and maintaining highways and bridges, so that the public can remain safe while getting to places they need to go. However, it is not just about fixing the small potholes in the roads, but more so, it’s about innovation. Engineers are always trying to find creative, new ways of making infrastructure smarter. “Innovation in infrastructure includes not only new technologies, but advanced design, pricing, and construction techniques,” says Robert Victor, a professional engineer and transportation group manager at HDR Engineering in Washington D.C.

Classifications:

Personal

A way to embody personal infrastructure is to think of it in term of human capital. Human capital is defined by the Encyclopedia Britannica as “intangible collective resources possessed by individuals and groups within a given population." The goal of personal infrastructure is to determine the quality of the economic agents’ values. This results in three major tasks: the task of economic proxies’ in the economic process (teachers, unskilled and qualified labor, etc.); the importance of personal infrastructure for an individual (short and long-term consumption of education); and the social relevance of personal infrastructure.

Institutional

           Institutional infrastructure branches from the term “economic constitution.” According to Gianpiero Torrisi, Institutional infrastructure is the object of economic and legal policy. It compromises the grown and sets norms. It refers to the degree of actual equal treatment of equal economic data and determines the framework within which economic agents may formulate their own economic plans and carry them out in co-operation with others.

Material

           Material infrastructure is defined as “those immobile, non-circulating capital goods that essentially contribute to the production of infrastructure goods and services needed to satisfy basic physical and social requirements of economic agents." There are two distinct qualities of material infrastructures: 1) Fulfillment of social needs and 2) Mass production. The first characteristic deals with the basic needs of human life. The second characteristic is the non-availability of infrastructure goods and services.

Economic

           According to the business dictionary, economic infrastructure can be defined as “internal facilities of a country that make business activity possible, such as communication, transportation and distribution networks, financial institutions and markets, and energy supply systems.” Economic infrastructure support productive activities and events. This includes roads, highways, bridges, airports, water distribution networks, sewer systems, irrigation plants, etc.

Social

          Social infrastructure can be broadly defined as the construction and maintenance of facilities that support social services. Social infrastructures are created to increase social comfort and act on economic activity. These being schools, parks and playgrounds, structures for public safety, waste disposal plants, hospitals, sports area, etc.

Core

           Core assets provide essential services and have monopolistic characteristics. Investors seeking core infrastructure look for five different characteristics: Income, Low volatility of returns, Diversification, Inflation Protection, and Long-term liability matching. Core Infrastructure incorporates all the main types of infrastructure. For instance; roads, highways, railways, public transportation, water and gas supply, etc.

Basic

           Basic infrastructure refers to main railways, roads, canals, harbors and docks, the electromagnetic telegraph, drainage, dikes, and land reclamation. It consist of the more well-known features of infrastructure. The things in the world we come across everyday (buildings, roads, docks, etc).

Complementary

           Complementary infrastructure refers to things like light railways, tramways, gas/electricity/water supply, etc. To complement something, means to bring to perfection or complete it. So, complementary infrastructure deals with the little parts of the engineering world the brings more life. The lights on the sidewalks, the landscaping around buildings, the benches for pedestrians to rest, etc.