Neighborhoods on ErrorZaphttps://errorzap.com/tags/neighborhoods/Recent content in Neighborhoods on ErrorZapErrorZaphttps://errorzap.com/og.pnghttps://errorzap.com/og.pngHugoen-USErrorZapMon, 14 Sep 2026 20:07:00 -060090s Kid - I Went Outside. There Was Infrastructure.https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-i-went-outside-there-was-infrastructure/Mon, 14 Sep 2026 20:07:00 -0600https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-i-went-outside-there-was-infrastructure/A scooter ride became a tour of the boxes, cables, pipes, towers, and one camera that keep a neighborhood interesting.
đź›´   90s KID //
I Went Outside. There Was Infrastructure.

The Accidental Infrastructure Tour

Yesterday I took my scooter around the neighborhood. Supposed to be a little ride. Get outside. Look around.

Apparently “look around” means photograph every utility pole, mysterious cabinet, and large pipe within range.

A four-panel comic shows a curious 90s kid growing into an adult who tours neighborhood infrastructure by scooter while remaining skeptical of surveillance.

Some people stop for flowers. I stop because there’s an interesting box attached to another interesting box.

This has been going on since the 90s. Back then, you’d see crews running cables or opening those gray cabinets and wonder what the hell was inside. Adults would say “phone stuff,” like that settled anything.

Now I work with technology for a living. I have considerably more specific questions about the box.

Two generations of telecom enclosures share one crowded utility pole.

Cables, enclosures, conduit, and tags turn a wooden pole into a vertical equipment rack.

Overhead lines branch through the neighborhood from a pole-mounted enclosure.

There’s something wonderful about seeing the physical stuff that keeps a neighborhood working. The internet has an outside. So does your kitchen faucet. I love that.

A black and lime scooter waits beside a utility cabinet and ground access cover.

A locked utility building makes “what’s in there?” feel like a formal invitation.

The boxes are not one mysterious machine. They are layers: power, switching, splices, valves, meters, backhaul, and access points. A telecom cabinet protects connections and electronics from weather and curious 90s kids who became curious adults. A water tower stores water high enough that gravity supplies steady pressure. A substation changes voltage and routes electricity toward the streets that need it.

 fiber ──> cabinet ──> neighborhood ──> house
 pump  ──> tower   ──> pressure     ──> faucet
 grid  ──> substation ──> feeder    ──> outlet

Pipes, cabinets, controls, and conduit gather beneath the water tower.

The water tower stands over its fenced equipment yard.

An electrical substation quietly handles the neighborhood’s less photogenic magic.

My enthusiasm does have terms and conditions, though.

Water tower? Fuck yes. Telecom equipment? I’m stopping. A roadside surveillance camera? Different reaction.

A pole-mounted roadside camera and solar panel overlook the street at dusk.

A close view of the roadside camera hardware mounted to a utility pole.

I can appreciate engineering and still dislike what somebody chooses to do with it. Loving technology doesn’t mean signing a blank check for surveillance. The camera is infrastructure too; that makes the questions about who operates it, what it records, and how the data is used more important, not less.

The modern descendant of those mysterious gray phone boxes is still a mysterious gray box—now with fiber, remote monitoring, and a web dashboard. Understanding more of it has not cured the urge to stop. It has only improved the questions.

A neighborhood water tower closes the tour beneath a dramatic evening sky.

As a kid, I wondered what all this stuff did. Now I understand more of it, and somehow that makes me want to stop and look even longer.

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