Public libraries are currently in the midst of an “institutional identity crisis” (Mattern, 2007). Many libraries are ‘re-tooling’ themselves as forms of social infrastructure (van Melik & Merry, 2021), as they aim to prove their ongoing relevance as a part of the urban fabric. This transformation of the library is something that has been actively noticed and understood by the wider public, and this current process of remaking is not occurring without contestation. This paper argues that the public library has become a key site within the city where tensions over the futures of public libraries, and the futures of cities more generally, are emerging. Drawing on public City Council submission processes, I argue that central city libraries in Aotearoa have become arenas in which debates over public space, the value of essential services, and urban infrastructure are taking place. These active processes are working to construct our cities in particular ways, either to remake neoliberal norms, or to make visible new alternatives for urban life. This paper draws out temporally inflected literatures of infrastructure and care to engage with the contested processes of imagining and making urban futures - from within the public library.