Online circle
Who controls the water
Petra, Angkor, Mexico City and Venice: four states whose authority rested on moving water, storing it or removing it, and four different ways that came apart. A circle for anyone who has ever wondered why infrastructure decisions outlive the people who made them.
This circle has no host yet.
Everything below — the expectations, the guide, the prompts, the session plan — is a prepared draft. There are no sessions scheduled and no conversation yet, and this page will not pretend otherwise. If you take it on, you decide when it runs and what it covers.
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What taking part asks of you
- Read the stop first. Bring the part you did not follow.
- Engineers, planners and hydrologists are very welcome and should expect to be asked things.
- Modern water politics will come up. Keep it descriptive.
- Bring your own city's water problem if it is relevant.
Host guide draft
Written by Globe Quest editorial on 2026-09-07, not by anyone who has run this circle. Change it freely once you have.
- Establish the shape early: these systems failed slowly, through strain and deferred maintenance, not through a single catastrophe.
- Resist the collapse narrative when it appears, and it will appear — it is more satisfying than the evidence.
- If somebody in the room works on water, hand them the floor for five minutes.
- Close on the maintenance question. It is the one that transfers.
Session plan draft
About 60 minutes. Suggested: An hour.
1. The stop20 min
Walk the reading and the mechanism it describes.
2. How it actually failed20 min
Strain, maintenance, and changed conditions.
3. Here15 min
Apply it to a system somebody present knows.
4. Next5 min
Choose the next stop.