Infrastructure

Infrastructure is the fundamental facilities and systems serving a country, city, or other area, including the services and facilities necessary for its economy to function. 

Overview

Infrastructure is composed of public and private physical improvements like roads, railways, bridges, tunnels, water supply, sewers, electrical grids, and telecommunications (including Internet connectivity and broadband speeds). In general, it has also been defined as "the physical components of interrelated systems providing commodities and services essential to enable, sustain, or enhance societal living conditions"

Classifications of Infrastructure

Personal

A way to embody personal infrastructure is to think of it in term of human capital. 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" 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
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, cycling infrastructure, 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 every day (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 bring more life. The lights on the sidewalks, the landscaping around buildings, the benches for pedestrians to rest, etc.

Infrastructure in the New World

Third Civilization Area and Outside the Civilized Areas

Without a doubt, these regions have experienced a massive growth in infrastructure development after encountering Japan. The first nations to experience these improvements were the Qua-Toyne Principality and the Quila Kingdom. Many other nations such as the Fenn Kingdom, Altaras Kingdom, and the Topa Kingdom quickly followed suit. During the Eleven Country Leadership Conference, nearly all the nations agreed that establishing diplomatic relations with Japan would greatly improve the quality of life, military and economic levels of their countries.

Second Civilization Area

Countries such as Mu, would also embrace the infrastructure improvements that Japan would offer. The eastern port city of Mykal would experience an enormous boost to its economy and technological level when Japan began investing in it, and renovating the ports and processing plants.

Japan

Japan has the most complex infrastructure in the New World, not only in its own country but others as well.