Why did the Western world not give a shit about having good infrastructure

For one thing, Western urban populations weren't fuckhuge enough to justify it until the 1700s.

For another thing, urban planning wasn't a thing.

Why do you think they didn't? The middle ages saw a great boom in commerce and transport.

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>>1697126
>Why did Renaissance Italians worship Roman art and architecture but not Roman roads or aqueducts?
Roman roads were built with the movement of the army in mind. Establish a fort mostly out of wood, build a road connecting it to the closest Roman town, beat the opposition, get the boys marching further away from the capitol city, rinse and repeat.

During the Middle Ages the urban population growth resulted in people building houses next to one another, there was no urban planning master strategy, you can see hilariously narrow roads in any historical city center in Italy as a consequence of this, car drivers hate going through them. And keep in mind that they didn't have anything significantly wider than two horses or even one to drive through them.

In the sack of Rome of year 455, the Vandals managed to capture the city because they knocked down all the aqueducts of Rome. Suddenly they don't look that impressive anymore. Perhaps we should imitate what the Romans did right.

Also in the Middle Ages people came up with kennels/canals/channels to get rid of wastewater.

In the 19th century you have two Industrial Revolutions, urbanization with massive migrations of would-be workers from the countryside to the city where the factories are, national States, etc.

It's a completely different animal. Urban planning that isn't complete and utter shit is now a necessity.

They did. Look through local government record and you'll find them full of infrastructure projects or regulations about maintenance of infrastructure.

Coventry for example had regulations about keeping the street and road by your house well maintained and clean, who has control of the gates to the public running water pipes and who needs to pay to maintain the cities defenses.


It's just that no one wants to write books about those things when you can write about armour or castles or pretty dresses or something like that.

>>1697126
Shit's terrifyingly expensive. If you don't absolutely need them (because your cities are too small, or there's not enough movement to warrant it), you don't do it. Sure, a road might make your army move faster, but if building a road makes you go bankrupt, the only ones moving faster will be your enemies.

>>1697126
The cities were still in the same place. So they continued using and repairing the Roman Roads in a lot of places.