Abstract
Palaces for the People offers an engaging and accessible introduction to the essential role social infrastructure plays in our lives and our communities, highlights how socially minded design matters, and makes a strong case for more social infrastructure to address the many social and economic challenges we face individually and collectively. The book’s author, sociologist Eric Klinenberg, champions the idea of “social infrastructure,” what he defines as those shared, public spaces like libraries, community gardens and urban farms, playgrounds, and sports facilities, that facilitate people making connections, forming networks, and finding ways to support one another. He also considers community organizations, such as churches and civic associations, as providing social infrastructure by making available physical space where people can come together.
The book’s focus on social infrastructure and its role in building and supporting community and enhancing resilience is also timely given the current political, economic, and social landscape marked by high degrees of polarization, significant economic inequality, racial disparities, and social isolation. It is easy to recognize our reliance on infrastructure in the traditional sense, especially in terms of roads and bridges, government buildings, and wastewater systems. But Klinenberg argues that social infrastructure is just as important as physical infrastructure, and that social infrastructure plays a critical but underappreciated role in modern society.
An interesting question that Klinenberg attempts to answer is “What is it that makes some social infrastructures more effective at bringing people together and building resilient communities?” He takes the reader through different examples of social infrastructure and dissects the factors that contribute to quality social infrastructure. He does so via uplifting vignettes of people enjoying and benefiting from shared places, coupled with research findings from the academic literature and insights from his own research and experiences.
Klinenberg’s central idea is that rebuilding positive societal bonds will require not just a strong and equitable economy, or thriving civic and community groups, flourishing voluntary associations, but also “the physical places and organizations that shape the way people interact.” These are places where people come together and mingle, make friends, and build connections, creating bonds that ultimately strengthen the entire community. He highlights how these places can, as the book’s subtitle indicates, “help fight inequality, polarization, and the decline of civic life.”
Building new social infrastructure is just as important as replacing traditional, physical infrastructure such as levees and airports, and a key point for Klinenberg is that both social and physical infrastructure can be strengthened simultaneously. He points to a growing network of planners, policy makers, and community leaders who recognize the importance of incorporating social infrastructure into existing physical infrastructure design and planning decisions by pursuing multipurpose projects. In the transportation world, I see this in the growing emphasis on complete streets, where attempts are made to incorporate non-automobile modes of transportation, such as walking/bicycling and transit, into road projects.
As a resilience scholar, I appreciated the book’s highlight on the role of social infrastructure in developing, building, and ensuring resilience. Klinenberg provides several examples that focus on climate and disaster resilience, and the topic of resilience is given significant attention in Chapter 6 (“Ahead of the Storm”). His examples look at the critical roles played by social infrastructure during and following extreme events, such as the Chicago heat wave and Hurricanes Sandy and Harvey. Using the case of Hurricane Harvey, he emphasizes how an informal network of churches helped affected Houston residents recover following the disaster. He discusses how the Rockaway Beach Surf Club in New York became a vital hub for recovery efforts following Hurricane Sandy. Klinenberg aptly notes that “when hard infrastructure fails . . . it’s the softer, social infrastructure that determines our fate.”
Most reasonable people would agree that social infrastructure is important, that more quality social capital is better, and that the government should have some responsibility for putting social infrastructure in place. The central idea of the book is itself not novel—there are no major A-Ha! moments. Those familiar with the general concept and importance of social infrastructure would not find any major new insights, nor will they find any provocative arguments that will prompt further thinking or discussion. The book, while well-written, reads more like a succession of case studies that highlight different facets of social infrastructure. Advanced readers looking for a theoretical framework or a more comprehensive argument of the what, why, and how of social capital may be disappointed.
For the novice reader, the book offers multiple illustrative examples from Klinenberg’s research and from existing literature. However, Klinenberg tends to flit from one example to the next, with many examples that are not discussed in much depth. Although many of the examples resonated with me, several times I wanted him to dig deeper into the examples and provide more details and ask more questions.
For me, a key takeaway from Palaces for the People is that all infrastructure is social. After reading the book, I found myself looking at the features of my university, community, and city, and assessing how these features, from the ordinary flower beds and pedestrian crossings to the elementary school and football stadium, affect well-being and sense of community. Klinenberg seems to suggest that social infrastructure is less something to be maximized as it is a lens that communities, policy makers, and public works professionals should apply to decisions about infrastructure. For example, this social infrastructure lens would prompt questions such as “How can we design this park, floodgate, or dam to support people coming together and forming connections?” and “How can we design public infrastructure to support activities and efforts that create or enhance social capital?” Unfortunately, the book is vague on how to actually apply this lens in practice.
Klinenberg stresses the importance of public investment in social infrastructure, noting that investment is required for both development and upkeep of social infrastructure. He makes the case that this investment is just as important as investment in traditional infrastructure such as bridges, roads, dams, and schools. But, as anyone working in the public sector recognizes, priorities compete and difficult decisions are often made to build one infrastructure project and not another. The decisions are hard enough to make between different traditional infrastructure needs, but what happens when social infrastructure must also compete for funding?
The book misses the mark in terms of asking this type of hard questions. Residents and policy makers may want to know how much social infrastructure projects cost. Public works professionals and policy makers need to ask and answer the question: How do you prioritize social infrastructure when it must compete for funding with other government priorities? How are they paid for? Who pays? And, from a public support perspective, how do you generate public support for investing in social infrastructure during a time of fiscal constraints and a polarized climate regarding the role of government?
Klinenberg concludes the book with a reminder: “What we need, now more than ever, is an inclusive conversation about the kinds of infrastructure—physical as well as social—that would best serve, sustain and protect us.” As we gear up for the next Hurricane Season, I am also asking myself how we can elevate different features of the community into strong social infrastructure that supports greater preparedness and enhances resilience. Other readers may draw similar parallels to aspects of community and resilience that are relevant to their lives and experiences. This book will likely resonate with public works professionals, policy makers, community leaders, and residents. It is a worthwhile read for illustrative examples of how social infrastructure shapes the way people interact and how communities come together. For public works professionals, it hits home with questions about the social aspects of our physical infrastructure, the social potential of our physical space, and the importance of coupling the physical and social in discussion and decisions about public infrastructure.
