The present state of the American infrastructure—roads, bridges, water supply, and the like—has been given an overall grade of D by the American Society of Civil Engineers, which regularly issues infrastructure report cards. The engineers' estimate of how much it will cost to raise the grade from poor to acceptable is $2.2-trillion over a five-year period. Such a vast amount of money is unlikely to be available over the next decade.
When the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly known as the stimulus bill, was passed in 2009, the word "infrastructure" was frequently invoked. Since then, prominent signs have gone up proclaiming that paving and other highway projects owe their very existence to stimulus money. However, less than $100-billion of the $787-billion total has in fact gone toward infrastructure construction projects.
In the meantime, our infrastructure continues to age and deteriorate. In many of our older cities, some of the cast-iron pipes that bring water to homes and businesses are a century old. Earlier this year a burst water main in the Boston area resulted in an eight-million-gallon-per-hour leak and led the governor to declare a state of emergency. Affected residents were warned to boil their water before drinking it.
As surely as water runs downhill, so will our infrastructure over the coming decade. Putting off preventive maintenance and replacing obsolete equipment are tempting ways to find cuts in a deficit-ridden municipal budget. New York City took that path during its fiscal crisis of the 1970s, and large and small cities across the country can be expected to do so in the coming years. Even if such action helps local economies recover by the year 2020, the infrastructure will be in such a sorry state that it will be near impossible for it to earn a passing grade.
Potholes know no politics; they will continue to develop as surely as rain turns to ice in winter. Bridges will corrode and collapse. Pipes will crack and burst. The physical foundations of our civilization will crumble under the weight of our complaints about it and our neglect of it. It will happen so fast that it will be impossible to keep up with its repair.
Infrastructure is a fancy contemporary term for what used to be known as public works. The change in terminology may have helped distract the voting public from seeing it as their collective obligation and a civic responsibility. But no matter what it is called, we will continue to depend upon our infrastructure for our safety and quality of life. If we do not recognize the urgency of maintaining it, we can expect the deterioration of our infrastructure to be a defining idea of what it means to be a citizen in a declining civilization.
Comments
1. billweare - August 31, 2010 at 08:09 am
We are experiencing the results of 50+ years of the consumer culture that we have purposely created. We have ceased to be a nation of citizens and have be relegated to a country full of consumers. Will it take catastrophic events to foment true cultural change in our nation? Or do we have the vision necessary to overcome the cultural inertia we have fed and change course? Only time and real leadership will tell.
2. dank48 - August 31, 2010 at 08:23 am
Over fifty years ago Arthur C. Clarke predicted communications satellites and feared our enemies would beam morale-rotting broadcasts at us to defeat us. He couldn't have expected we'd do it to ourselves, for money, more thoroughly than any external enemy ever would have. Meanwhile the entire country has become Las Vegas-ized: everything and everybody is for sale, and on credit. We mistake hot air for action, abstractions for reality, and nobody can be bothered to keep things running, while pretending that those credit-care bills will never come due. The best part is that there's no left-right, liberal-conservative fault line; everybody's been in on it.
Clarke's story ended "And I remember Babylon."
3. birdseyeview - August 31, 2010 at 08:48 am
"Public works" is less likely to gain support of the people who create and support the Republican agendas. The tax-dodging billionares whose companies rely on roads, bridges, etc. spend extensive resources figuring out how to avoid paying for those resources. So...actually, a case can be made that there is a political fault line into whose chasm the U.S. infrastructure is crumbling.
4. arrive2__net - August 31, 2010 at 03:30 pm
Building something new happens at one place at a time, where maintaining what's there has to happen everywhere, and is actually a much bigger job. There is much more glory in creation, than in maintenance. The US has a relatively short history 234 years, so maybe we could learn something from older civilizations that have had to maintain assets for a much longer time. In America's past there wasn't as much to maintain as there is now, but I think that eventually we will learn the ropes and get infrastructure maintenance right. Fortunately we have articles like this one to help make us aware of the situation.
Bernard Schuster
Arrive2.net
5. lslerner - August 31, 2010 at 06:46 pm
The unholy alliance of those who hate public spending for anything, and those who hate automobiles, has led to a disgraceful deterioration of the highway-bridge system in the US, and in California in particular. To give just one example, it would have been far cheaper to build a new Bay Bridge and then retrofit the existing one than to build the ongoing fancy span "under the wheels" of current traffic. And then there would have been new capacity. But we have instead a very expensive, very late replacement with a very expensive bike lane that goes halfway across the Bay.