Might a City's Most Useful Building Be One That Nobody Plans to Visit?
Importance and visibility rarely grow at the same speed.
Sometimes. Critical infrastructure often creates enormous value while remaining largely invisible.
Few tourists visit a water treatment facility, electrical control center, or emergency coordination hub.
The hidden mechanism is dependency concentration. Entire cities may depend on systems that attract little public attention because their success looks like normality.
People naturally notice places where activity happens. They rarely notice places that make activity possible.
A landmark becomes famous because people visit it. Infrastructure becomes important because people do not need to think about it.
