Boring cities

Most of the world’s major cities are now undergirded by complicated subterranean infrastructures; buried communication networks, water and waste management systems, storage vaults, transportation corridors, and even underground housing. In the past, only states, backed by tax revenue, could afford to undertake the boring and excavation required to build such spaces. Today however, the private sector seeks to profit from building, maintaining, and owning urban undergrounds. In this article, we traverse five underground assets in five cities—Sydney, Mexico City, Singapore, Los Angeles and Beijing—to query the political implications of underground privatisation. In allowing municipal underground infrastructure built for public provision slip into the hands of individuals and corporations, we suggest that the boring taking place under cities is far from boring, it’s the next chapter of neoliberalism, where we hand over control of the critical infrastructure that makes urban life possible.