Under construction: we grumble at what keeps the city from breaking down
Op-ed published in Lyon Mag on 3 August 2026, starting from the roadworks that saturate the Lyon urban area every summer — and what they reveal about an urban machinery we only see when it fails.
Star and Ruhleder: invisible infrastructure
Susan Leigh Star and Karen Ruhleder (Steps Toward an Ecology of Infrastructure, 1996) established that as long as an infrastructure works, it blends into everyday life. Nobody thinks about the water network when opening a tap; you start thinking about it when nothing comes out. The summer works — connections to the heating and cooling networks around Part-Dieu, renewal of the heating network on rue Baraban, a sewer collector in Caluire-et-Cuire, slope stabilisation on boulevard de la Duchère, connecting the T9 in Villeurbanne, the T10 between Saint-Fons and Vénissieux — are the moment this invisible layer surfaces.
Forty project owners on a single street
Up to forty project owners can work simultaneously on Lyon’s public space, each with its own schedules and constraints. What residents perceive as disorder is first of all a coordination problem — and the irritation is aimed less at the works themselves than at the absence of any explanation of who does what, when and why.
Huré: technology as lever or constraint
Maxime Huré (“Expertise, infrastructures, réseaux. La technique, levier ou entrave à l’action publique urbaine?”, 2021) points to the ambivalence: technology gives local governments material means to act, but narrows their room for manoeuvre when they depend on a multitude of operators and timetables they do not control.
The inauguration/maintenance trade-off
The summer controversy over Lyon’s fountains illustrates the asymmetry: maintenance is invisible as long as it is done. If upkeep is carried out, the breakdown never happens and nobody knows it was avoided; if it is postponed, the budget saving is immediate and the bill arrives later, often on someone else’s watch. Hence the conclusion: you can grumble at a badly organised worksite — what should really worry you is when nothing is being repaired.