International investment law is designed to encourage the movement of capital toward optimally productive uses, thus generating economic gains and fostering development. At the same time, treaty-based protections of foreign investors can restrict host governments’ ability to pass rules that negatively impact on foreign investments even when such rules are for socially desirable goals such as poverty reduction. Applied to the question of new technologies, this framework theoretically leaves access to and utilization of new technologies between the technology-pulling impact of investment protections and the equity-hindering impacts of regulatory measures to reduce poverty in all its forms. Does the practice of international investment law dispute resolution indicate that this tension is resolved in favor of technology investors or in favor of equality-enhancing measures?

This chapter examines the various aspects of the digital divide and the provisions of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that contain states’ promises on the relationship to promote access to new technologies as a way of reducing poverty. It then looks at several early investment disputes that have arisen out of new technology investments in order to draw conclusions about whether investment protections help bridge the divide or exacerbate it. The result is more ambiguous than expected.

This chapter systematizes the argument that the Court should and can calibrate its proportionality test to the infrastructural dimension of the populist attack on democratic and rule of law provisions – and, as such, operate the test as ‘anti-populist detector and responder’. While the general argument is all stages of proportionality aims at enhancing deliberation, representation and the rule of law in populist context, the specific argument is Court should revise its approach to the second stage of the proportionality assessment, the purpose or ‘legitimate aim’ of the interference, by holistically inferentially screening a wider spectrum of potential infrastructural erosion.

Chapter 10 offers a summary of the structure, methodology, and findings of the book. It highlights the interdisciplinary nature of the investigation, in particular how a philosophically grounded argument can bear upon the reasoning of the Court while simultaneously addressing a pressing societal challenge.

Humanisation of healthcare cannot be separated from dignity in a patient-centered care model. The International Research Project for the Humanization of Intensive Care Units (Proyecto HU-CI) was initiated in 2014 with the aim of changing the current paradigm of intensive care towards a more human-centered care model. Patients, families, and professionals (everyday stakeholders) were asked to describe their ideal intensive care unit (ICU). Using their opinions, eight areas of interest to improve the culture of ICUs and change the reality of care delivery throughout the world were highlighted. These include: an open-door visitation policy, enhanced communication, a clear focus on patient well-being, presence and participation of relatives in care delivery, care for healthcare professions, recognition and prevention of the post-intensive care syndrome, humanized infrastructure, and comprehensive end-of-life care.

Chinese politics has been dominated by leaders hailing from Shanghai. Xi Jinping was its party secretary; so was Li Qiang, China’s current premier. After Tiananmen, Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji scaled the Shanghai Model to the whole of China. The Shanghai Model, the genesis of the China Model, was statist and extractive. An illustration was the development of Pudong, which relied on mass evictions of rural residents, offering low or no compensation, and auctioning off land to highest bidders. The huge spreads between acquisition costs and auction prices fueled Shanghai’s development but brought modest benefit to the average Shanghainese. The poorest segment of the Shanghai population lost relatively to other segments of the population but also lost absolutely to its former self. The income level of Shanghai’s individual proprietors was also low, relative both to rich provinces such as Zhejiang but to a poor province such as Yunnan. The statist Shanghai Model was not innovative. Shanghai lagged Zhejiang and Jiangsu in patents. By measures that track more closely the welfare of the individual citizens, the Shanghai Model is not a resounding success, and yet this is the model that has prevailed in China since 1989.

Chapter 5 layers in investigation of notions of empire and longevity, examined here through the lens of more mundane and pervasive structures—its streets and public highways—to reckon with the attenuated and amalgamated temporalities that these infrastructures construct through the accumulation of large- and small-scale acts of maintenance and repair and the referencing of those interventions by milestone monuments in the extra-urban landscape.

Chapter 3 considers the nature of provincial government, the role and legal responsibilities of governors, both legati Augusti and proconsuls, the management of Rome’s assets through the census and by direct intervention, for example, in managing the benefits and dangers of rivers. We look at the constitutions of municipia, and the nature of their laws and regulations, and Rome’s supervision of the infrastructure of local towns, and the consequences for local people. In the administration of justice there was a melding of local legal practice and Roman law. Did the Romans have an idea of what constituted fair and efficient government and how far did they achieve it? The evidence shows good intentions on the part of emperors and governors, but also many abuses, especially from the presence of soldiers, and problems in obtaining legal redress.

Volume I offers a broad perspective on urban culture in the ancient European world. It begins with chronological overviews which paint in broad brushstrokes a picture that serves as a frame for the thematic chapters in the rest of the volume. Positioning ancient Europe within its wider context, it touches on Asia and Africa as regions that informed and were later influenced by urban development in Europe, with particular emphasis on the Mediterranean basin. Topics range from formal characteristics (including public space), water provision, waste disposal, urban maintenance, spaces for the dead, and border spaces; to ways of thinking about, visualising, and remembering cities in antiquity; to conflict within and between cities, economics, mobility and globalisation, intersectional urban experiences, slavery, political participation, and religion.

In the coming decades, cities and other local governments will need to transform their infrastructure as part of their climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. When they do, they have the opportunity to build a more resilient, sustainable, and accommodating infrastructure for humans and non-humans alike. This chapter surveys a range of policy tools that cities and other local governments can use to pursue co-beneficial adaptations for humans, non-humans, and the environment. For example, they can add bird-friendly glass to new and upgraded buildings and vehicles; they can add overpasses, underpasses, and wildlife corridors on transportation systems; they can reduce light and noise pollution that impact humans and nonhumans alike; they can use a novel trash policy to manage rodent populations non-lethally; and more.

Eighteenth-century Britain experienced massive growth in its transportation networks. As turnpikes, canals, and railways extended throughout the realm, they inevitably crossed one another. Each crossing compelled Britons to decide how different forms of traffic would share space. This chapter shows how writings occasioned by crossing disputes conceived infrastructure not as an unthought material strata – as it is often construed today – but as a call to weigh and prioritize different amenities. The chapter focuses specifically on one contested crossing in early eighteenth-century South Wales where a coal tram crossed the king’s highway. This intersection spurred an exchange of pamphlets between those who characterized the tram tracks as a public nuisance, and those who regarded them as a public work that employed artisans, distributed carbon fuel, and generated customs revenue. At stake in these writings is the question of whether privately owned freight conduits advanced or undercut the public good.

While Chapter 4 outlines the national pattern of visibility projects and the forced exit of private firms from the urban bus sector, this chapter uses comparative case studies, in-depth interviews, and process tracing to explore the causal mechanism linking visibility projects to deprivatization. Guangzhou and Nanning, two capital cities in neighboring provinces in southern China, are selected for a most-similar case comparison. Guangzhou deprivatized its bus sector in 2007, whereas Nanning continues to have a privately controlled bus sector.

Guangzhou initiated multiple visibility projects in its urban bus sector, driven by ambitious city leaders seeking attention from the Party-state. In contrast, Nanning launched only a few projects, as its city leaders sought to avoid attention following recent political turmoil. By contrasting these two cases and demonstrating why deprivatization occurred in Guangzhou but not in Nanning, this chapter illustrates how visibility projects led to the end of marketization in China’s urban bus sector.

Peat extraction profoundly transformed central Russia’s physical, economic, and social geography. This chapter traces how canals, railways, cables, as well as housing and social welfare helped make central Russia’s peatlands more habitable. From the 1920s onwards, and particularly following Stalin’s death in 1953, the government invested considerable funds allowing workers to live permanently near important peat extraction sites. Over time, workers’ settlements turned into regular parts of the landscape and homes for workers and their families. The everyday in these places blended features of urban and rural life. Enjoying access to running fresh water and basic health care, most people combined employment in peat extraction with private gardening to produce food. This chapter foregrounds the often overlooked role of workers’ settlements as spaces of reproduction in the history of Russia’s fossil economy. Peat was not just a fuel but also a source for place-based feelings of belonging that allowed workers to embrace the margins of Russia’s fossil economy as their home.

Even in the most mundane sectors, firms are still required to provide political services. This chapter examines how the urban bus sector across Chinese cities became a focal point for visibility projects starting in the early 2000s and how this trend led to an uncoordinated, nationwide deprivatization of the urban bus sector by city governments beginning in 2005. These actions contradicted policies that encouraged private provision of bus services.

Using an original dataset on visibility projects and sectoral data from 288 Chinese cities covering the urban bus sector between 1996 and 2016, the chapter demonstrates how successive waves of visibility projects were closely linked to the reversal of marketization in the sector. The chapter opens with an account from a city government official describing their efforts to force private firms out of the urban bus sector, and is enriched with detailed interview notes throughout.