CityLab.com published an article about civil engineering, bridges, and the fatal collapse of a bridge in Genoa, Italy, earlier this week.

What Brough Down This Bridge in Genoa?

The disaster has focused attention on the state of infrastructure built during the nation’s postwar boom.

In December of 2016, the Genoese newspaper Il Seculo XIX sounded a familiar alarm about Italy’s infrastructure spending: Authorities were too focused on building new things, rather than paying for years of deferred maintenance on aging structures built in previous decades. The story focused in particular on the estimated 5,000 bridges in the region of Liguria. Many had been built in the 1950s and ‘60s. And some of them were falling down.

Antonio Brencich, an engineering professor at the University of Genoa, told reporter Roberto Sculli that until the 1950s, the best bridges in Italy were built to support at least the weight of a U.S. Army Sherman tank ... 

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