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In national security, the term " critical infrastructure" is also extremely broad (although it should be less inclusive as not all infrastructure should be considered critical) and includes support, e.g. for banking, and other such processes of questionable merit. One issue is the necessity of means of protection, and of accounting, in increasing value of life. Advocates of a broad definition usually argue that without these "critical" systems, the rest of the infrastructure is looted, burned, or not safe to use.
Another issue is whether means of persuasionA means of persuasion in some theories of politics and economics, can substitute for a factor of production by providing some influence or information. This may be of direct value to the actor accepting the influence, i. a bribe, or instructional capital, like computertower of a personal computer. A computer is a device for making calculations or controlling operations that are expressible in numerical or logical terms. While factually accurate, this definition and those found in other dictionaries are so broad that th or radioFor other uses see: radio (disambiguation Radio is a technology that allows the transmission of signals by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of light. Radio waves Radio waves are a form of electromagnetic radiation, and are or televisionSee TV (disambiguation) for other uses and Television (band) for the rock band Television is a telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures and sound over a distance. The term has come to refer to all the aspects of television p technologyTechnology ( Gr. tau;εχνολογια < τεχνη "craftsmanship" + λογος "word, reckoning" + the suffix ια) has more than one definition., can qualify as infrastructure in any sense, as it is more belief-sustaining than life-sustaining. The arguments parallel those for means of protection, with conservatives generally asserting that belief in a common view of reality, especially in emergency response , is critical to survival.
The term is used most often in an urban planningUrban, city or town planning deals with design of the built environment from the municipal and metropolitan perspective. Other professions deal in more detail with a smaller scale of development, namely architecture and urban design. Regional planning dea context to denote the facilities that support specific land useLand use is the pattern of construction and activity land is used for. Patterns of land use arise naturally in a culture though customs and practices, but land use may also be formally regulated by Zoning, other laws or private agreements such as restricts and built environmentThe expression built environment largely associated with the discipline of urban planning, recognizes that the physical world in which humans function and thrive has been intentionally created; is something aesthetically and functionally shared; and funct. This article focuses on those, to avoid the more political issues above.
Typically, infrastructure in this context denotes two general groups of support systems: transportation modalities ( roads, rail, etc.) and utilities. These typically compose both public and private systems, and some ambiguously held in common.
Infrastructure may also refer to necessary municipal services , whether provided by the government or by private companies. If provided by nature, e.g. the flow of a river, they are called nature's services and are distincted (at least in economics) as the product of natural capital. This may be augmented or directed by infrastructural capital, e.g. a dam or canal or irrigation ditch. In general what is called infrastructure tends to be very embedded in the natural landscape and cannot be moved from place to place. Even municipal services rely necessarily on fixed locations, e.g. fire stations in central positions in a city, transmission tower s on tall buildings, etc..
Infrastructure (in the civic sense) includes: